By Jane Kramer ’29 Dorothy Day was about as eccentric as a person could get. After fighting for years and years as a suffragist, getting thrown in jail multiple times, and starving herself for the cause, when she finally received the right to vote, she never cast a ballot. Yes, when it was unpopular forContinue reading “No Longer Lonely: The Paradoxes of Dorothy Day”
Author Archives: ndamstamericana
Who Loaded the Gun?: Rick Ross vs. the Reagan Administration
By Greer Waller ’29 President Ronald Reagan’s aggressive expansion of executive power defined the 1980s as much as the Cold War standoff. On the surface, Reagan projected an era of renewed patriotism, economic deregulation, and foreign policy designed to roll back the influence of the Soviet Union. Yet, beneath this facade of optimism, American innerContinue reading “Who Loaded the Gun?: Rick Ross vs. the Reagan Administration”
Communism and Americanism: A Microhistory on the Life of Elliott Maraniss
By Liam Cavanaugh ’29 In the 34 years of my life, in war and peace, I have been a loyal, law-abiding citizen of the United States. One week after this nation was attacked at Pearl Harbor in 1941, I enlisted as a private in the Army of the United States and served for more thanContinue reading “Communism and Americanism: A Microhistory on the Life of Elliott Maraniss “
Self-Portraiture as a Conduit of Life and Death
By Anna Bellocchio ’28 Emerging from the punk and BDSM communities of New York in the late 1970s, Robert Mapplethorpe photographed and shaped the visual language of queer identity, desire, and the art world through highly stylized studio photography. His work explores the intersection of eroticism, beauty, and queerness. Mapplethorpe approached his subjects with controlContinue reading “Self-Portraiture as a Conduit of Life and Death”
Bodies, Labor, and Loss: An Analysis of David Wojnarowicz’s Earth
By Evan Weltin ’28 Earth by David Wojnarowicz (1). From 1980 to 1987, the AIDS epidemic had claimed tens of thousands of lives in the United States (2). For a substantial portion of time, politicians in the federal government like President Ronald Reagan remained silent and unwilling to fund adequate healthcare and research in theContinue reading “Bodies, Labor, and Loss: An Analysis of David Wojnarowicz’s Earth”
Female Firsts: The 1990s & Women’s Leadership at Notre Dame
By Molly Swartz ’26 Before the American media and public ever labeled 1992 the “Year of the Woman,” the University of Notre Dame had already declared its own. In 1990, amid rising female enrollment, concerns about sexual assault, and campus-wide debates over gender equity, Notre Dame dedicated the 1990-91 academic year to addressing some ofContinue reading “Female Firsts: The 1990s & Women’s Leadership at Notre Dame”
Reconciling a History of Indigenous Erasure at the University of Notre Dame
By Austin Harjo ’26 Introduction Being an Indigenous marketing and American studies student in the Notre Dame senior class, I’ve always had the mentality that being an Indigenous scholar was a contributing factor in my acceptance into the University of Notre Dame. Since the day I stepped on campus as a freshman in 2022, IContinue reading “Reconciling a History of Indigenous Erasure at the University of Notre Dame”
A Trip to the West Side: Inequity and Hope at Coquillard Elementary School
By Kate Rafford ’26 The outside world seems quiet on Monday morning at 7:30 a.m. The streets are full of cars, but they glide softly past the intersection of Lincoln Way and South Sheridan. The rising sun offers a glimpse of the long day that is to come. Meanwhile, inside three sets of high-security glassContinue reading “A Trip to the West Side: Inequity and Hope at Coquillard Elementary School”
Reform or Conform?: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Contradictory Agency
By Marie Stier ’29 A feminist, eugenicist, egalitarian, Christian, and natural selection-advocate walk into a bar. No, there’s not a conversation that leads to the joke’s punchline. She’s the only one in the bar. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is, on the surface, a deeply contradictory person. She was an advocate for female empowerment yet also anContinue reading “Reform or Conform?: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Contradictory Agency”
Home Is Where the Black Woman Is
By Milan Rei Booker ’25 A search for home is something that is timeless, something that every individual desires: a place where they feel that they belong. This desire was prevalent in Black Americans, especially during and after the Great Migration, in which around one million Black Southerners migrated to the North due to racialContinue reading “Home Is Where the Black Woman Is”
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