Browsing by Author "Nobles, Heidi"
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- Models of the Post-Racial World? Rhetorics of Race among U.S. Military BratsNobles, Heidi (Virginia Tech, 2015-11)The U.S. military has long been claimed as a model for racial integration, having been integrated by executive order before the general population; significantly, too, the military is constantly shuffling but organized by service branch and rank, and so installation neighborhoods are more prone to organized diversity than their civilian counterparts, which tend toward homogeneity based on race and class. For the estimated two million children growing up in this system, such experiences of diversity provoke worthwhile questions of what influence those military children will have upon leaving the military system for the civilian world. Many have speculated that military children are more comfortable with constructive racial integration than their civilian peers; as third culture kids, they have been referred to as prototypes for the future due to their blended identities and global backgrounds. Yet as sociologist Dr. Morton Ender noted back in 2006, no one has yet done a study specifically looking at race among military kids; as of 2015, as far as I can tell, this claim remains true. In this paper, I look at the content and quality of what now-adult military kids say about race to explore the constructive elements of their rhetoric about race in and after the system, as well as to consider the unique challenges and anxieties involved in living out racial experiences in unusual and shifting environments.
- Proceedings of the Second Conference on Veterans in Society: Humanizing the Discourse(2015)The second conference on Veterans in Society represented ongoing growth and continuity in our research program. Our first conference, “Changing the Discourse” (2013), marked the first academic conference solely focused on veteran-related research and brought together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to start a conversation on the relationships between veterans and the broader society. Papers included work on the arts as therapeutic and expressive acts for veterans, U.S. citizens’ right to lie about military service, and discourse analysis of language affecting servicewomen. For this 2014 conference, our theme’s title, “Humanizing the Discourse,” speaks to a two-fold aim: We hoped to foster increasingly sophisticated dialogue regarding veterans, which required recognizing the individual humanity of people who can sometimes be turned into one-dimensional caricatures behind headlines, statistics, and stereotypes. To support this goal, we invited contributors to draw on the tools of the humanities, as well as the arts and social sciences, in addressing veterans’ issues and shaping policy. We hosted five panels of research projects from contemporary scholars—on topics including international veterans, veterans as intercultural educators, and the role of writing and film in expressing veterans’ experiences—and featured a series of relevant special events including live theatre, film screenings, and a featured panel on military-civilian dialogue. The proceedings that follow include all available print copies of papers and accompanying slides, along with the full original conference program. Due to the live nature of many events, as well as accompanying copyright issues, some written materials are not available.
- Race and/or Reconciliation : Proceedings of the 3rd Conference on Veterans in Society(Virginia Tech, 2016)The Veterans in Society (ViS) research group is proud to present the proceedings of the Third Conference on Veterans in Society: Race and/or Reconciliation, with papers that represent a wide range of research and community engagement, and a focus that speaks to the growth of our work over the past several years.