The School of Film, Media & Theatre congratulates Haifa “Pye” Siregar and Anthony Dannar on being awarded the Provost’s Dissertation Fellowship for 2022. The fellowship supports doctoral students from across the university as they complete their dissertations and is awarded to candidates with outstanding scholarly accomplishments.
Siregar’s dissertation is entitled: “Deli, Rubber, and Industrial Power: Goodyear’s Conquering the Jungle (1925), how a region in Indonesia shaped the face of the world.”
The dissertation examines a documentary Conquering the Jungle, produced by Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, about their plantation in the Deli area, East Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (the region is now part of North Sumatra province, Indonesia). The operation that made possible by land concession with the Dutch East Indies colonial power and the local ruler of the Deli Sultanate. Competing with other companies’ plantations, Goodyear made heavy investments to make their plantation as prosperous and profitable as possible. They establish a rubber laboratory to explore the latest techniques to cultivate the best crop, extract the finest latex, vulcanize the top-quality rubber sheet, and efficiently ship the crude material to their main factory in Akron, Ohio, the U.S.A. They even developed a “civilization” that would bring beneficial values to whoever lives there, regardless of class, social status, and race: foreigner or local, employees or coolies. This dissertation is motivated by the question of what a place would be when it is established, developed, and maintained by industrial power from the colonial era until the day of a modern nation-state. The aim is to explore the idea and imagination tied to the filmed space by close reading the film scenes and conducting archival research related to the Goodyear operations, the Dutch East Indies colonial, and modern Indonesia.
Dannar has yet to name his dissertation. However, the dissertation explores the role of brand culture, platform logic, and fan play in the emergence of an algorithmically recognized fan identity that embodies white supremacist conspiracy theories and reactionary politics. By conducting a multifaceted analysis of three seemingly disconnected fan communities and their role in the maturation of the white masculine crusader (WMC) fan identity, I show how fans use to play and body presentation to establish transmedia narratives about their place in the United States socio-political hierarchy.
This highly competitive fellowship requires endorsement from the student’s dissertation advisor and department chair. A compelling statement of purpose, an abstract for their dissertation and other accomplishments are taken into consideration in the final selection.
For more information about this fellowship and other funding opportunities please visit https://graduate.gsu.edu/