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This paper focuses on the John Hough film Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974). Using the work of Sabina Spielrein, this paper situates the car chase in the film as allegorical and as representing a desire for economic and social rebirth for its titular characters. However, the economic, political, and social upheaval of the period means that such desire is impossible to fulfill. Contextually, the promise of systemic change, so potent in 1960s America, had not fully materialized. The car chase that makes up much of the film then becomes a death drive for the characters. This positions the titular characters as variations on the absurd hero that Albert Camus articulates in The Myth of Sisyphus. They flee from institutional authority with little hope of escape, yet they flee anyway, finding meaning in the rebellion. Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry differs thematically from the car chase films of the late 1970s and early 1980s. These later incarnations reappropriated the car chase to mute the genre's capacity to provide a critique of dominant social and political discourses. Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is underrepresented in critical writing, and this paper seeks to redress this underrepresentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American dream of Indians usually speaks of the realized or unrealized aspirations in the land of opportunities, how the characters try to cope with their conflicted lives, and the struggles associated with settling in their dreamland. What about their family members? What about those who are never able to even reach that land to get an opportunity to realize their dreams or see them fail unpleasantly? Prashant Nair's Umrika gives us a glimpse into such lives; it lends an eye to the struggle of the family members left-behind, waiting endlessly for their migrated family members. The winner of the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2015, Umrika is a film that explores America as the ultimate Land of opportunities, a place where working-class people of the 1980s yearned to go and earn a living. The film portrays the plight of family members of migrants through the settings of an old isolated village in India, the grim city of Mumbai, and the imagined city of America, the land of opportunities. The paper would focus on the value of this film as a cinema of the people dedicated to the working class attempting to create a better life for themselves in bigger brighter cities and the price that the family members pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tucked into strip malls along Brookhurst Street are the scattered agglomeration of restaurants, markets, bakeries, butcher shops, hookah lounges, educational centers, hair salons, and clothing stores catering to groups who come from the Middle East and North Africa. Proliferating over the last twenty-five years, this Anaheim thoroughfare is colloquially known as Little Arabia. The small strip of commerce is supported by the nation's largest Arab population residing throughout Southern California. The emergence of Little Arabia is similar to what scholars refer to as "ethnoburbs," "invisiburbs," and "design assimilated suburbs." Little Arabia, however, represents something different: what this paper refers to as an "ethnoanchor." To illustrate the descriptive utility of the ethnoanchor typology, this paper unpacks the historical, spatial, social, and political dynamics of Little Arabia to illustrate how contemporary migration patterns are influencing suburban regions, collectively illustrating the constitution of a new kind of American dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lemann uses Berle, Jensen, and Hoffman to chart the respective rise, fall, and mistrust of the now-infamous Organization Man and his successors, whom Lemann christened Transaction Man and Network Man. Lemann dug deep into Berle's papers in order to explain the Progressive-era origins of an iconic member of FDR's Brain Trust. Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream Nicholas Lemann New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019 320 pp.; $28.00 (cloth); $18.00 (paper); $11.99 (ebook) "This book", Nicholas Lemann concludes, "has examined a succession of grand conceptions of how to organize the economy to produce a good society" (252). Instead, he focused his story on New Dealer Adolf Berle, Harvard Business School professor Michael Jensen, and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman to outline shifting twentieth- and twenty-first-century trust in institutions, transactions, and networks to form a more perfect, and prosperous, union. [Extracted from the article]

Based on the proposition that human beings are humor beings, this article probes into Iranian society through the lens of humor. It also strives to open a window to Iranian perspectives on America. Persian online jokes as the mainstream of Iranian humor about America are focused on. The qualitative analysis of several stereotypes of these jokes offers insights into Iranian viewpoints on domestic issues as well as American society. The paper discusses three categories of jokes: "double-barrel shotgun," "American Dream," and "rattlesnake." They are elaborated on against a backdrop of recent developments in Iran, Iran-US geopolitical tensions, and the social functions of humor. Iranian jokes about America chiefly serve as a secure, legitimate venue for Iranians to express their domestic concerns, permitting a discourse of resistance and awareness under the façade of humor. Such humor also reveals the tacit, socio-cultural presuppositions Iranians hold about American society. Thus, the paper can potentially shed light on how Iranian society considers its American counterpart regardless of the media propaganda and the conflicts between the respective governments. This is a notably under-explored area of research to which this article endeavors to contribute new insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multiculturalism sought by Ronald Takaki is not ethnic separatism, but a serious scholarship that includes all United States peoples and challenges traditional master narratives of U.S. history. Class is a "hidden reality" of U.S. history. Multiculturalism affirms what this country stands for: opportunity, equality, and realization of our dream. (MLH)

The American Dream has long been understood as a “shorthand summary of a nation’s collective aspirations” (Hauhart 2015:65). What determines optimism about the Dream? This paper uses nationally representative data collected at a critical historical juncture to advance research which has connected the American Dream to America’s racial history. We find faith in the American Dream was racialized into the 21st-Century, both in the sense that our data show different levels of optimism toward the Dream by race and in that predictors of belief vary by racialized experiences and ideologies. We find that most Americans continued to believe in the American Dream, but contrary to prominent 20th-Century understandings, whites became less optimistic than persons of color, and that this remaining white belief was complex, with racial attitudes being central. Predictors of belief in the Dream were different by race in ways that may vitally reflect how collective aspirations are conceived from within unfolding American racial civic histories and 21st-Century racial hierarchies, patterns we discuss as privileged multiculturalism (whites), meritocratic incorporation (Hispanics), and positive social inclusion (Blacks). Ultimately, these findings suggest that the socio-cultural significance of the American Dream is not just tied to material position but intertwined with racialized cultural expectations, outlooks, and status concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An autobiographical narrative of a Puerto Rican bilingual teacher reflects on the social and educational impact of bilingualism, biculturalism, and bilingual education on her life. It also aims to redefine the American dream to more adequately reflect the contemporary multicultural character of a bilingual American. (Author/SV)

Presents an annotated bibliography of educational resources from the ERIC database related to democratic education. The materials include digests, monographs, journal articles, and academic papers. The citations include all relevant bibliographic information and a short abstract, as well as, information on ordering and locating the materials. (MJP)

This study is a spatial analysis of The Great Gatsby (1925). This novel presents the power game among various white classes in American society in the context of the Roaring Twenties, with obvious spatial characteristics. The geographical distribution between East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes presents the high-and-low-class distinction of different classes in social space. The upper classes practice class oppression and exploitation through space, while the lower classes also use space to resist oppression and climb the class ladder. This paper draws on French philosopher Henri Lefebvre's spatial ideas, especially the spatial triad, to explore the close connection between space and class in the novel. The Great Gatsby encompasses various class groups in white society, including the hereditary aristocracy like the Buchanans, the new money represented by Gatsby, and the lower class represented by the Wilsons. To modify the spatial order, different classes use space as a medium to preserve their class identity and seek their social presence, which reproduces the illusion of the American Dream of the Jazz Age and reveals Fitzgerald's humanistic concern for people in spatial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the argument more specifically on the humanistic psychology; a vibrant movement of the late 1950s; emphasizing the qualities, growth, need, creativity, and motivation of an individual. Philip Roth's American Pastoral was an American classic, a novel of American culture. It is not only a biography, but an intensive interpretation of the fall of American dream. The author demonstrates the American Pastoral from the humanistic point of view. This paper attempts to analyse the humanistic attitudes and values in the novel American Pastoral. The process from the basic to the being needs in the novel is being critically expressed within the framework of the humanistic psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I describe dynamic teaching to adult, mainly immigrant students, who are new to philosophy and often are college "firsts." Adult students have family, financial, and work obligations, whereas standard students are leisured outside of class and approach philosophy as consumers. I teach from assigned texts, dismissing as a conceit of philosophers that philosophical questions arise from real life experience. My students are intensely focused on their grades, frugal with their expenditure of academic effort, and prone to submit all of their coursework at the end of the semester. A syllabus requiring weekly assignments with citations curtails that. For immigrant students, who value their college degree as entry to the American dream, the hard work usually ascribed to them is, here, academic work. Learning to do philosophy in this way can result in enduring meta-skills of time management, focused reading, thinking, and group participation that carry over to other subjects and real life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delves into Norman Mailer's novel "An American Dream" as a literary exploration of the multifaceted American experience during the mid-20th century. By scrutinizing the protagonist's tumultuous journey through the underbelly of American society, this analysis unveils the novel's nuanced portrayal of the American Dream as a contested and often elusive frontier. The study employs a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating elements of sociology, psychology, and cultural studies to unravel the intricate layers of identity, power dynamics, and existential struggle within the narrative. Through the lens of Mailer's distinctive prose, this paper illuminates the ways in which the novel navigates the paradoxical terrain of ambition, success, and moral decay, ultimately challenging conventional notions of the American Dream. This examination contributes to a deeper understanding of Mailer's unique narrative style and his enduring relevance in shaping discussions surrounding American identity and aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Scott Fitzgerald's novels in light of Deleuze and Guattari's critique of capitalism. While Deleuze and Guattari's capitalist social machine is a break from Marxism, it decodes the traditions that define subjective desires or concepts like beauty and ethics. Under capitalism, subjective desire arises as a capitalist desire and reproduces the capitalist power. In his novels, Fitzgerald addresses the idea of the American dream in a similar way. His characters often embody the contradictions of American experience such as success and failure, dream and nightmare, illusion and disillusionment. This paper critically analyzes Deleuze and Guattari's reading of desire within Marx's work and the role of the American dream in a capitalist system as a sort of antiproduction. It seeks to illustrate how the concept of love in Fitzgerald's novels is tied to the idea of money and how their connection delineates, in the same way, the commodification of the desire that Deleuze traces in his reading of Marx. Accordingly, this paper also argues that similar to philosophy, fiction can be employed to provide a better understanding of our represented world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a call for a more nuanced reading of the dynamic kaleidoscope of (sub)urban landscapes that characterize contemporary metropolitan regions. Within this metropolitan context, there is a need to move beyond perceiving the 'suburbs' as distinct and separate from, and, subservient to the 'city'. If anything, the suburbs are in a deep symbiotic relationship with the 'city' - (sub)urban entanglements. Such entanglement means that the suburbs and the city simultaneously exhibit suburban and urban elements. Hence, the terms (sub)urban, (Sub)urban, (sub)Urban, and (SUB)URBAN are used as a framework to denote the varying degrees of intermingling and scale of suburbanity and urbanity that characterize (sub)urban areas. Although suburbia has long been framed as a fundamental facet of the 'American dream' and the 'great Australian dream' the suburbs have been the object of much criticism, and derided for their conformity, domesticity and uniformity. In short, the suburbs have been stereotyped as a blandscape. However, as metropolitan regions have grown in physical and demographic terms, an array of (sub)urbanisms have emerged, and continue to do so, thereby creating a (sub)urban blendscape in terms of housing morphologies, densities, land uses, socio-cultural diversity, and governance at the metropolitan, sub-regional, local government, and suburb level. Simultaneously, an array of (sub)urban brutalscapes have also emerged as metropolitan regions have expanded. Suburbanization, extended urbanization, gentrification and (sub)urban regeneration are all contributing processes to the (re)production of brutalscapes that manifest at a range of scales and assume a variety of forms - e.g. infrastructural, sociocultural, housing, and environmental. Despite the criticisms of and problems with suburbia the idea(l) of the suburban dream prevails as metropolitanism expands. This points to the metropolitan region constituting a brutopianscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles del CEIC is the property of Centro de Estudios sobra la Identidad Colectiva, Facultas de Ciencias Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Arab World English Journal is the property of Arab World English Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this study is to investigate Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by utilizing the theory of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The study, a theoretical construct founded on two key concepts from Bourdieu's theory, namely habitus and field, aims at offering a new perspective to understand the dilemma of the protagonist Changez from a sociological cultural perspective. It shows how Changez cultivates his habitus to pursue a specific taste in America through multiple forms of cultural capital and manifests how these forms shape his attitudes and relations. It also offers a metaphorical portrayal of Changez as a footballer who struggles within various positions to retain power and eventually fulfill his American dream through both the macrocosmic and microcosmic social fields that he finds himself in. The assumption that this paper is seeking to validate is that there is a common ground between the novel and Bourdieu's theory of practice in some key concepts and that understanding the habitus and the doxa of Changez' social fields can help understand his practices, dispositions, and most importantly the reasons behind him leaving America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of identity (re)constructions across different locations is central to diasporic literature. Voluntary or forced exile, diasporic characters participate in different cultural identity processes, attempting, for example, to break through solid walls of excolonial stereotypes, superiority and subjugation constructs. In this context, Laila Lalami casts light on the overshadowed and silenced stories of the displaced migrant in seminal works as Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, the Moor's Account and The Other Americans. The Other Americans recounts the story of a Moroccan migrant family whose hope of an American dream comes to break on the shores of a reality of being 'Othered'; relegated to a lower status by the white-dominated society. In this vein, this paper seeks to study how these issues are represented in relation to the articulation and negotiation of 'new identities' and how disillusioned they become in a host society which is not less barren and mirage-like than the Mojave Desert itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its history and status as a purveyor of quality children's entertainment, Disney's animated films are often associated with notions of "wholesomeness" and "family fun" by audiences. Consequently, consumption of Disney's media products tends to be an uncritical process. While a preferred decoding of Zootopia recognizes in its characters and story an affirmation of racial diversity and girl power, the film's polysemy conveys other latent messages that emerge through a negotiated reading. This paper focuses on the discourses within Zootopia that promote neoliberal values such as consumerism, individualism, and "small government." An analysis of the text reveals that Zootopia constructs an ideal citizen who obeys the law, performs their consumptive duties, believes in the capitalist myth of the American Dream, and happily accepts simulacra as substitute for reality. Furthermore, this paper makes the argument that Zootopia functions as a feature-length advertisement, not only for consumer products per se, but in a broader sense, for the consumerist lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English & Cultural Studies is the property of Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, CCE Departamento de Pos-Graduacao em Lingua Englesa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The immigrant-crime relationship is often misunderstood and highly complex. To date, criminological research has largely ignored theory testing of this relationship. This paper examines the extant literature on intergenerational offending amongst immigrant youth and subsequently tests whether the segmented assimilation theory- a theory borrowed from the interdisciplinary social sciences- adequately explains immigrant offending. The study uses data (N = 1,267) from the Pathways to Desistance Study (PTD) to examine intergenerational differences in changes to offending between immigrant youth and the native-born. The analyses largely reveal that the theory, based on its original assumptions, fails to adequately explain youth offending, and that the models provide more support for the straight-line theory of assimilation in regards to delinquency. Limitations and recommendations are discussed and proffered, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Winter Dreams from a Marxist perspective. It talks about Marxism from a twofold perspective. First, Fitzgerald creates elaborate geographical and structural maps that delineate where the bourgeoisie and proletariat begin and end. For instance, the communities of West and East Egg would qualify as the proverbial American dreamland, a place of wealth and higher aspirations, while the Valley of Ashes symbolizes proletariat poverty and exploitation. Second, Fitzgerald shows that the protagonists of these stories experience eventual ruin, partly because of their consumerist and materialist orientations and ambitions. In other words, it is precisely this need to acquire material wealth that drives characters to ruination, leading to Gatsby's death and Dexter's unhappiness, as he realizes that wealth cannot offer spiritual satisfaction. The Marxist reading will consider both features as fundamental to Fitzgerald's broader goals to situate capitalism within a rapidly-declining, opulent America. While Fitzgerald may not have been an out-and-out Marxist, and indeed, such assertions remain controversial to make, there was certainly something in capitalism that he saw as failing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is an attempt to decode the linguistic games in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962) using corpus linguistics. Stylistic devices will be analyzed through a reference to the dominant metaphors and the ironic tone of the playwright. The playwright invents many linguistic games which have thematic functions; they are meant to parody the American middle-class values and institutions. Fun, verbal battles, guessing games, baby talk, and word-play are used by George and Martha to ensnare their guests in their dysfunctional marriage. I will also refer to the role of deixis in translating the playwright's lamentation over the transformation of the American motherland into the locus of "ashes." The bitter reality, the failure of success, and sterility have encouraged the protagonists to move from reality to illusion and to invent a fantasy child who exists linguistically (and not biologically). The aim is to mislead the guests and to validate their unhappy marriage. What is specific about George and Martha is that they insult each other, they blur the boundaries between the private and the public, and they have failed to carry out the functions of a happily united family. Characters will go back to reality at the end of the play; "reality exists at the moment when language stops" (Bigsby 282). In other words, characters will face reality and acquire a realistic vision about their situation when they solve the linguistic enigma. The final goal of the paper is to create an interdisciplinary zone between linguistics and the literary text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the aim is to analyze theme of ‗American Dream‘ within Lorrain Hansberry‘s A Raisin in the Sun. Such a theme has appeared roughly as a recurring theme of debate in literary works and drama undoubtedly is not an exception of that. This paper tries to figure out an answer for the question in which how is the American Dream exposed according to every character within the play? Playwrights attempted through their artistic productions and reproductions to exhibit such a theme while writing dramas to enlighten the image of America on a societal ground. As for the play itself, the spread of African- American ideas in literature is made use of in socially depicting humans‘ rights. Lorrain Hansberry being one of the prominent black writers, has been telling the world concerning the Black people‘s pain and awes. The distresses, thwarting and domination of the subjugated Africans are exhibited in her writings. Throughout the drama, the protagonist is shown as controlled by the White and the way she strived being discriminated. The methodology of this article is a textual analysis for the excerptions under investigation making use of the Theory of Racism and Racial Discrimination to comprehend the sociological status of the characters in the play. It is found that Black people – under the siege of the Whites – have suffered the discrimination due to oppression, color and social status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to understand the rise of ‘the dropout’ as a central figure in the wider myth of entrepreneurial success. Over the past decade, a large number of ‘tech entrepreneurs’ share a success that is often attributed to the fact that they ‘dropped out’ from their respective universities. To address this, the paper begins by exploring the inherent irony that a number of high-profile ‘dropout entrepreneurs’ have given graduation commencement speeches: the irony being that their narrative of success and hope is articulated to those who, as graduates, can never follow this path. From this, the paper traces the cultural lineage of ‘dropping out’ over the latter half of the twentieth century from a position of denigration to the embodiment of the celebrated values of entrepreneurship and its central association with ‘self-reliance’ as an ideal that continues to underpin the ‘American Myth of Entrepreneurial Success.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article argues for a reading of Ernesto Quiñonez's novel Bodega Dreams as a post-colonial response to F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby. In probing the intertextual connections between the two novels, this paper argues that Quiñonez's engagement with Fitzgerald's text should be read as post-colonial response, as doing so highlights the persistent coloniality that is experienced by Puerto Ricans living in the mainland United States. By reading Bodega Dreams within the context of its specific Puerto Rican cultural dynamics, the paper argues that the coloniality of the Puerto Rican diaspora is revealed, and thus amplifies the critique of the American Dream that is initiated in Fitzgerald's classic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The guilt-ridden character archetype is a recurring premise in Clint Eastwood's cinema, recognizable in the inner conflicts of the protagonists of iconic titles, such as Unforgiven (1992), Mystic River (2003), Million Dollar Baby (2004) and Gran Torino (2008). According to Scott, Unforgiven marks the beginning of the filmmaker's authorship stage, where scenarios of diverse genres, such as road movie, war cinema or gangster plots introduce protagonists who coincide in their need for purification. This paper aims to explore the construction of characters carried out in the four titles aforementioned, by means of a script analysis methodology based on the dynamics of conflicts and on the classic concepts of hybris, hamartia and catharsis. This analysis points to a double purpose. On the one hand, it highlights the purification sought by the protagonists of Clint Eastwood and its relationship with the Christian moral context in which the characters arise, as Roche & Hösle notice. On the other hand the analysis points out the social extension of the concept of catharsis addressed by the filmmaker, especially critical when exposing the fragility of the American Dream and its modern traumas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is a comparative study on narcissistic personalities and consequences of their actions in Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman" (1949) and Saul Bellow's novella "Seize the Day" (1956). Relational content analysis method is used to explore different degrees of narcissism in the characters - the subject of this paper. The research aims at analyzing narcissistic traits, such as obsession with fostering a self-image, denial, preoccupation with unrealistic grand fantasies of success, obsession with superiority and fear of inferiority, and feelings of specialness in connection with the characters of Willy Loman and his sons in Miller's play and Dr. Adler and his son in Bellow's novella. Their desperate and excessive attempts to attain their desired image and to get approval of self-worth in society detach them from their true identity and make them lead a life of failure, alienation, and helplessness as well as suffer from an existential crisis. The narcissistic characters lack empathy and capability of establishing healthy relationships with others they are associated with even as regards parental and conjugal bonding. Instead of healing them, such bonding actually turns out to be a form of bondages that victimizes them. A materialistic and capitalistic society like that of the twentieth century New York was no less for their suffering on both the personal and professional levels. Their fallacious perception of the American Dream is also associated with their narcissist vision of denying their poor status, which was in perpetual conflict with their make-believe images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Blacks think about making it big, do they wish for the same types of things as other Americans? How does their race affect what makes it onto their wish lists? Drawing on interviews with 54 middle‐class Black New Yorkers this paper investigates their imagined future consumption. The findings reveal that for most middle‐class Blacks their combined race and class status influenced how they envisioned their aspirational consumption. By analyzing their aspirational consumption, it became clear that they were embedded in a materialistic society that links the achievement of the American Dream with the acquisition of specific things. Yet for many middle‐class Blacks their aspirational consumption also departed from traditional individualist goals, as their commitment to racial uplift was evident in their aspirational consumption. However, there was a small group for whom the pleasure and status that comes from the acquisition of material possessions weighted heavily in their consumption fantasies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gish Jen described in her first novel Typical American how the first generation of Chinese intellectuals overcame difficulties to accept American culture and value, and became typical Americans at last. In a consumer society, their fate is not optimistic. In the process of realizing American dream and pursuing money to show their values, they fell into spiritual vacancy and became the victims of consumer society. From the perspective of consumer culture, this paper discusses their American dream and explores the roots of the disillusioned American dream. This paper reveals that the causes of the disillusioned American dream are the influence of materialism in consumer society as well as the conflicts of Chinese and American culture. People in a consumer society desperately pursue material wealth but ignore the spiritual world. In order to avoid disillusionment of American dream, Chinese Americans should realize the hypocrisy of American dream. Instead of following the flow, they should learn to integrate Chinese and American cultures and enrich their spiritual world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Alustath is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose – The question of whether the words "American Dream" point to something of substance is at the heart of the authors' inquiry. James Truslow Adams coined the term in his 1933 book The Epic of America as a way to re-establish a sense of optimism decimated by the Great Depression. Adams' contribution was to move the public discourse from that of individual effort to a sense of a collective identity. The American Dream is an element of the "cultural stuff" whose singularity ("dream") rapidly breaks down into a variety of interpretations about the American nation ("dreams"). The popular press suggests that the Dream proposes to balance collective membership in a national identity with the individual freedom to achieve prosperity and success. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the Dream and the construction of an American identity by examining the accounts of men who surely represent the American Dream: US Presidential candidates. Design/methodology/approach – In order to analyze the candidates' accounts of themselves as committed to their American identity and to the American Dream, the authors view the tax returns and speeches of Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney through the lens of the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and locate the American Dream as a construct of the imaginary and symbolic orders, as they are defined by Jacques Lacan. The inspirations for the authors' analysis are twofold. One is a 1953 report in which Lacan said, "The unconscious of the subject is the discourse of the other". The authors argue that the American Dream is the "discourse of the other" and suggest that the American identity is decentered: i.e. a signifying construct (the American Dream) substitutes for identity. The second inspiration is a 2009 paper titled "No one is perfect" by John Roberts, who argues, "The ideal of a transparency pretends to a mere making visible [...] [But] transparency works to advertise an ideal against which we will always fail". Findings – It was found that the candidates' efforts to be transparent advertise an ideal: in this study, the ideal is the ideal of a "perfect-able" American who lives the American Dream. It is an ideal against which the candidates fail because it is the "discourse of the other". Research limitations/implications – This study has limitations. The subjects are two American citizens and the authors' interpretation might not be appropriate to other American citizens and residents. Originality/value – The authors are aware of no other study that uses Lacanian psychoanalytic views to examine the American Dream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a longitudinal study of Indians who initially arrived in the United States in pursuit of a dream for the specific purpose of fulfilling academic and/or professional goals and who eventually elasticized their stay as they became permanent residents or naturalized citizens. While literary works abound with poignant tales of the trauma of adjustment, the relative smooth transition into the middle-class mosaic, or the fierce retention of ethnic distinctiveness, there are limited historical and sociological analyses of the Indian immigrant experience, fewer still of the professional Indian woman's immigrant experience, and none about the structural-cultural dichotomy of the potential immigrant who has not quite burnt his (or her) bridges behind him (her). While the longer study takes into account both the historical and demographic changes in the pattern, nature, type, and extent of Indian immigration since WWI era to the present, this paper focuses on case studies of the post-1965 generation of Indian immigrants who came for the next three decades, who had no definitive plan of adopting the United States as their country of residence, but who eventually did. Their structural assimilation and cultural distinctiveness is juxtaposed against the post-millennium transnational group. While the statistical data is primarily collated from census records, the behavioral and attitudinal components of the profile are based on data gathered through participant observation, survey responses, and independent interviews. Respondents provided information about ancestry, patterns of socialization, motivation to relocate to the United States temporarily, their imagined and actual role in the country of adoption, and the problems of alienation and adaptation. This data is then analyzed keeping in view the intersection of class, gender, and now the post-millennium transnational in an age of globalization. In the course of this analysis, the triple marginalization of the Indian professional woman remains constant, while the American Dream undergoes a redefinition twice; once during the transition from the preimmigrant to the immigrant stage, and a second time, now, in the imagery and life-style of the newest transnational in the age of globalization in a new milieu, even a new terrain, India. With the exponential rate of increase in the return of the prodigal, now back to India where jobs and gadgets abound, has the American Dream turned full circle? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an integral part of a longitudinal study of one group of Asian Americans, Indians, who initially arrived in the United States in pursuit of a dream for the specific purpose of fulfilling academic and/or professional goals, and who eventually elasticized their stay as they became permanent residents or naturalized citizens. The paper notes that while there are numerous poignant literary portrayals of the Indian immigrant's trauma of adjustment, his/her relatively smooth transition into the middle-class mosaic, or their fierce retention of ethnic distinctiveness, there are limited historical and sociological analyses of the Indian immigrant experience (particularly taking into account issues of sub-ethnicity), fewer still of the professional Indian women's immigrant experience, and none about the structuralcultural dichotomy of the potential immigrant who has not quite burnt his (or her) bridges. The paper first provides a historical overview of both the historical and demographic changes in the pattern, nature, type, and extent of Indian immigration in the last fifty years; it then concentrates on multiple case studies of the post-1965 generation of Indian immigrants, particularly those who came here from Bengal (Northeastern India) for the next four decades, until the end of the 1990's, who had no definitive plan of adopting the United States as their country of residence, but who eventually did. The paper concludes that during the transition from the pre-immigrant to the immigrant stage, in each of the five decades, the long-term resident's/ naturalized citizen's "American Dream" has undergone a re-definition that is distinctly reflective of and parallel to the political and economic changes in the host society. However, while there is an overarching trend towards structural assimilation, there is an equally pronounced and consistent cultural alienation from the host society in the post-1965 group. What is also consistent is the continuing triple marginalization of the single, professional, Indian (and in this case, especially Bengali) woman. The paper then raises the question whether the term Bengali/Indian/Asian American is a reactive/strategic response to battle homogenization, or does one know in some abstract, ontological, trans-historical fashion what being Bengali/Indian/Asian American is all about? The paper poses a further question: in an age of eroding borders and distances, in an era when the return of the prodigal to India is increasing at an exponential rate, when the American Dream is concretized (literally, and figuratively, for instance, in the gadget-abounding multi-storied American-like apartment complexes) in a new milieu (an economically vibrant urban India), has the Dream turned full circle? An attempt to answer the last question is the sequel to this study, where, in a separate paper, the structural assimilation and cultural distinctiveness of the post-1965 group is contrasted with the departure from such traditional collectivist behavior witnessed in the post-millennium generation of diasporic Indians-- itself a product of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines students' claims about who can become an engineer and what it takes in engineering culture to be successful. Through longitudinal interviews with 20 undergraduate engineering students, we found that participants' descriptions of who can 'do' engineering were paradoxical. Participants simultaneously maintained that 'anyone' could do engineering and that individuals must also possess certain characteristics to become engineers. This study connects these students' responses to broader conversations regarding social advancement and meritocratic values within U.S. engineering culture. Participants' responses reflect a definition of engineering that may on the surface appear open but is in practice exclusionary to individuals who do not conform to certain expectations. While many discussions of culture in engineering focus on the values and practices of 'core' members such as faculty or practicing engineers, it is imperative to consider the understandings that students bring to their university and enact while being enculturated into the engineering profession. This study contributes to the literature by examining the ways cultural values are upheld and reified among undergraduate engineering students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competition between word and image to take a priority over each other as the better medium reached a turning point by the advent of cinema in twentieth century. The resonance of competition soon faded away when critics began to study not the extent to which one film adaptation is imitating the literary work but the discursive field behind each cinematic adaptation. In this respect, the great status of each literary adaptation is readily justified. Under this purview, the mainstay of literary adaptations is controlled within a certain discursive practice. As such, the principle that pervades Hollywood literary production is tinged with the idea of American dream as the predominant discursive formation running through the whole system. Nevertheless, at the critical moment of Great depression, the necessity of encapsulating the idea of American dream was stressed more than ever since America needed to rebuild the shattered idea on which the country has been built itself. Therefore, the contribution of this paper lies in studying William Wyler's 1939 Adaptation of Wuthering Heights with respect to Michel Foucault's theory of discourse to prove that this literary adaptation is produced with the purpose of advertising the idea of American dream shattered during the Great depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chingada Complex is the result of the conquest of the Americas. La Chingada is a Mexican expression that reveals a defining cultural complex for people of the Americas, which is expressed through language and image. Beginning in 1492, La Chingada was the name given to describe the conquest of Mexico. It is the story of the birth of a people, the mestizo, a mixed race—a blending of European conquistadores and the indigenous people of the Americas. Not only did La Chingada occur in Mexico—a second "Chingada" occurred in the United States as a result of the Mexican–American War of 1846, which created a new collective trauma that continues to the present day. Who are these people, these mestizos, that live within the borders of the United States? The Xicanx are the Hijos de la Chingada, they are the children of the conquest and internal colonialism. The trauma of this conquest is seen in unique cultural expressions rooted in Mexican heritage but uniquely expressed by today's Xicanx. This paper will begin to examine the children of the conquest living in the United States. We will examine the archetypal phenomena of Pachuquismo and the oppression of the indigenous feminine through past and current events. As we shall see, the Chingada Complex impacts us all. By examining this North American complex, we can bring to consciousness the shadow of both the European conquest and the American Dream so that a process of reconciliation may begin. I am reminded of Jung's wisdom when he wrote, "When there is a light in the darkness, which comprehends the darkness, darkness no longer prevails." (Jung, 1970/1956, para. 345) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture shock is a common phenomenon in the life of studying abroad. Universally, due to cultural differences in living habits, thinking mode, language level and other fields, Overseas Chinese students may experience four stages of cultural shock, namely euphoria, frustration, adjustment and adaptation, and reverse cultural shock. Each stage will have an impact on their physical and mental health. Therefore, it is necessary for overseas students who want to go abroad to master some countermeasures to adapt to cultural shock, so as to help them spend their overseas study life more smoothly and experience the least negative impact of cultural shock. Based on the cultural shock phenomenon reflected in the film "American dreams in China", this paper discusses the causes of cultural shock for Chinese overseas students and cultural adaptation tactics in intercultural communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose that reading and writing with novels contributes to the emerging field of researching affect in organization studies. Situating our argument in current research on work-related uncertainty, we take John Fante's novel Wait Until Spring, Bandini as a 'sensuous site' of research to engage with the experience of feeling stuck – addressed as impasse, limbo or permanent temporariness – as a condition of contemporary work lives. While affect theoretical approaches often emphasize precognitive intensities and their transformative potential, the novel foregrounds how affective intensities stay and stick as they are entangled with powerful socio-political conventions, such as investments in the American Dream or the idea of stable employment. Such affective attachments take shape in antithetic dynamics of the not-so-static state of feeling stuck. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Scott Fitzgerald’s novels in light of Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of capitalism. While Deleuze and Guattari’s capitalist social machine is a break from Marxism, it decodes the traditions that define subjective desires or concepts like beauty and ethics. Under capitalism, subjective desire arises as a capitalist desire and reproduces the capitalist power. In his novels, Fitzgerald addresses the idea of the American dream in a similar way. His characters often embody the contradictions of American experience such as success and failure, dream and nightmare, illusion and disillusionment. This paper critically analyzes Deleuze and Guattari’s reading of desire within Marx’s work and the role of the American dream in a capitalist system as a sort of antiproduction. It seeks to illustrate how the concept of love in Fitzgerald’s novels is tied to the idea of money and how their connection delineates, in the same way, the commodification of the desire that Deleuze traces in his reading of Marx. Accordingly, this paper also argues that similar to philosophy, fiction can be employed to provide a better understanding of our represented world.

The aim of the present paper is to reappraise some short stories published by Joyce Carol Oates in the last decades of the twentieth century in order to identify a pattern of violence that pervaded, in the writer's opinion, the American cultural landscape of the time, one marked and marred by consumerism, material saturation and void spiritual expectations, as well as to show that the writer's obsessive recurrence to violence was, before the age of online communication, a genuine reflection of a society in which the individual's desire for public visibility would easily become a substitute for fame and/or success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguity, this paper argues, is not merely a property of dream imagery, but ignites a process that is dreaming thinking. When images are ambiguous, the mind cannot fix on a single meaning. Hence dream ambiguity catalyzes a play of possible meanings that implicitly raises questions, not only about personal memories but also about those cultural models that these memories evoke. Dream thinking, then, renders people's ongoing subjective reactions to culture into images. Through data from a 2004 to 2009 study of Northwest American student dreams and life histories, I propose that people think within dreams by representing daily ambivalences as visual ambiguities. Excerpts from this dream study illustrate seven types of visual ambiguity in dreams. Implicit in this taxonomy is a method of cultural dream interpretation that I present through an analysis of a full dream from a young man, Clarence. Through this analysis I show how ambiguities in Clarence's dream represent his ambivalence about an American masculinity model—one that may underlie the school shootings that are now so common in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hereby paper presents the de Romanians have while travelling to the USA through the Work & Travel Program and its personal and professional benefits. For this we recruited 145 students who participated in this program filling in opinion questionnaires, in order to assess the following data: the advantages and disadvantages of the program, the issues young people faced while away and the added value of this experience. Approximately 70% of the interviewed students state that they signed up of the Work & Travel program in order to live the American Dream, being driven by curiosity and the desire to be financially independent, but also in order to perfect their English language skills. Among the advantages of the program, mentioned by over 50% of the respondents, we would like to mention the following: the experience they gained, developing their integration and socializing abilities in the new cultural, professional and social environment; the opportunity to travel and visit new places; and personal development. Regarding the disadvantages of the program, 70% of the students interviewed cannot see any weaknesses to it. The rest of the 30% are of the opinion that there are some disadvantages like the long distance from home, possible misunderstandings or disagreements with the employer and also certain health issues that might arise during the program. Among the above-mentioned added value items to the program, we noticed the following in the respondents' answers: the opportunity to get to know the American culture, to improve their English language skills, to travel and also to recover their initially made financial investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Superman’s image symbolizes the utopian and ideal narrative of the American Dream. Yet, the feasibility of the American Dream transformed this national hero into a commodity meant to be consumed. Thus, one of the most beloved heroes of the 20th century became what Theodor Adorno foresaw: a commodity designed to be reproduced and to be a part of the culture industry. This paper examines how consumerist tendencies resulted in Superman no longer being able to represent the core principles of the American Dream. The theoretical framework consists of Umberto Eco’s interpretation of Superman’s heroic structure and its Greek reminiscences. The works of Andrew Terjesen, (Superman and Philosophy. What would the Man of Steel do?) and Larry Tye (Superman. The High Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero) will be used to analyze the scale on which Superman has been used as a soft-power means of disseminating American values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Baseball as a sport contributes much to represent American culture and life. The playground of baseball provides the basis where Americans can dream and fulfill their aim. Gradually, the baseball becomes an integral part of American literature. Earnest Hemingway, the noted American novelist uses the playground of baseball in context of Cuban fisherman Santiago's struggle to catch the big marlin. Thus baseball becomes the vitality of culture represented by literature. This paper aims to examine the influences of baseball on the novel The Old Man and the Sea, both thematically and structurally. The paper also tries to show how Hemingway's true baseball hero Dimaggio becomes the only inspiration for Santiago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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