Digital Commons Network^™

How Alumnae Of A Feminist Organization During Middle-High School Perceive Their Involvement As Related To Their Academic Self-Concept, Miranda R. Snyder

Honors College

Research has found that youth involvement in activism can benefit sense of self and belief in one’s abilities to make positive change for those involved through unique communication with people who are passionate about the same issue, a sense of personal empowerment, and a deepened sociopolitical consciousness to understand the complexities of social-justice issues.

This qualitative study provided greater understanding of how youth perceive their involvement in a feminist organization related to their academic self-concept in middle- high school. Six alumnae of the Girls Advisory Board (G.A.B.) of Hardy Girls Healthy Women, a Maine-based nonprofit that focuses on the empowerment …

Wilde Stein Club Poster, Wilde Stein: Queer Straight Alliance

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Social media post by the Wilde Stein Queer Straight Alliance, promoting a membership meeting for new students.

Orono House Of Pizza Promotional Sticker, Orono House Of Pizza

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

An Orono House of Pizza promotional rainbow sticker in rainbow pride colors stuck on a lamp post outside Fogler Library at the University of Maine. The lettering reads: "Ohop. All my homies are pepperonis." Popular with university students, the Orono House of Pizza, located at 154 Park Street in Orono offers pick up, delivery, and in-house seating.

Creating Places-Of-Memory: Photographs, Identity, & Matrilineality, Aylah Ireland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My artistic practice and family genealogy create the opportunity for a change in the perception of family history. I seek to illuminate and reframe family history and definitions of self while exploring an alternative to, or an addendum to, the patrilineal model of genealogy. Using the photographs and information gathered from my matrilineal bloodline and my preconceived definitions of self, I have created artworks that are places-of-memory. The places-of-memory, sometimes locations, sometimes objects, or sometimes the interaction with objects in an environment, provide an opportunity for discussion regarding the omitted or dismissed nature of the matrilineal line. This paper outlines …

Downtown Orono Pride, 2020, Madison Riley

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Photographs taken by University of Maine student Madison Riley documenting the "Pride Zoo" in downtown Orono, Maine, celebrating diversity in a time of quarantine, June 2020. Labels near each sculpture provide explanatory text about the history and meaning of the various Pride color schemes. Each display invited members of the public to take pictures with the sculptures or the Pride Progress flag display along the bridge, before posting it on social media with the hashtag, #OronoPride2020.

Exploring The Marginalized Voice: Queering Form In Contemporary Short Fiction, Madalyn M. Jackson

Honors College

Feminist and queer narrative theory calls into question the systemic way of thinking about categorizations such as genre conventions, form, and length. The short story subverts all of these, flipping common love plots or hero arcs, denying readers whole pictures, and privileging plot over character development. Through the application of feminist and queer narrative theory, this study evaluates Lambda Literary Awardwinning texts from authors Chinelo Okparanta, Krystal Smith, and Carmen Maria Machado on how the function, form, and common conventions of the short story are subversive in nature and lend themselves to the functions, forms, and conventions of the queer …

An Examination Of Pervasive Language Around Sexual Harassment Through The Lens Of Anita Hill, Christine Blasey Ford, And #Metoo, Elizabeth Theriault

Honors College

This thesis explores the hypothesis that the #MeToo Movement and Twitter have contributed to the changes in language used by individuals to describe sexual harassment and the survivors that come forward with their stories. To do so, this thesis identified common themes derived from language used in New York Times articles published during the Hill and Thomas hearings of 1991, as well as Tweets published between the dates surrounded the Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh hearings, September 25, 2018 and September 29, 2018, to create a comparable platform for language used in similar settings 27 years apart. It contains a literature …

Madonna, Monster And Other Stories: Surrealist Short Fiction, Katherine Skvorak

Honors College

Surrealist literature has a long history of excluding female writers from the conversation, and as a result, women surrealists often wrote to critique the male/female binary and examine the oppressive forces denying their work. Madonna, Monster and Other Stories acts as a continuation of the female surrealist legacy and a further exploration and critique of invisible authorities that govern societal standards, create belief systems, and control logic and reason. Using methods created by the surrealist movement, such as the Exquisite Corpse exercise, image collaging, and automatic writing, these stories embrace the unconscious, the dreamlike, and the uncanny to break down …

“Putting Out Fires”: An Original Situational Comedy Pilot Episode Examining Modern Motherhood, Keely Gonyea

Honors College

Even in an age of easily accessible and ever-changing digital content, television remains one of the most influential modes of media. Shows, on television and on streaming services, play key roles in informing their audiences of societal conventions. Situational comedies are an easily identifiable genre on television and their popularity has not wavered as seen by their steadfast presence during primetime viewing slots. This thesis explores and analyzes how situational comedies have created spaces for potentially harmful stereotypes for their female characters, specifically mothers. The creative work of this thesis offers an original situational comedy pilot episode that looks to …

Female Political Campaigns: Just The Right Amount Of Femininity, Harley Rogers

Honors College

This paper seeks to understand how female politicians develop their public identities to meet and reject the gender stereotypes society holds of women. The case study looks at Margaret Chase Smith’s political career, with a special focus on her 1964 presidential campaign. The research analyzed Smith’s career through the newspaper coverage of her in order to understand Smith’s choices surrounding her public identity and the media’s response. The analysis identified four distinct points of interest that contributed to Smith’s public persona: physical appearance, examples of housewifery, dialogue on women’s issues, and legislative accomplishments. These factors demonstrate how Smith presented her …

The Use Of Smartphone Apps As A Supplement To Transgender Voice And Communication Therapy, Maura Philippone

Honors College

This university IRB-approved thesis follows a case study research design and investigates the effectiveness of the app “Voice Analyst” as a supplement to transgender voice and communication therapy. It is hypothesized that the use of “Voice Analyst” outside the clinic will enable participants to make greater progress and to increase their ability to retain their progress. The participants are four transgender women who want to raise the pitch of their speaking voices. The participants are asked to record themselves reading “The Rainbow Passage,” and their data are tracked in a spreadsheet. “The Rainbow Passage” is the standardized passage used for …

College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences_Mt 101 & Wgs 101_Covid-19 Response, Kevin Roberge

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Email from Kevin Roberge, Adjunct Mathematics Faculty, University of Maine to the Provost Office regarding how he had incorporated the COVID-19 pandemic into his courses MAT 101 and WGS 101.

Franco-American Women's Suffrage Movement And Legislators, Rhea Côté Robbins

Franco-American Centre Franco-Américain Occasional Papers and Lectures

Beginning with info on the Canadian suffrage over the years...property-owning women having the vote, losing it, comparison/contrast in regard to what Camille Lessard Bissonnette was doing, she was an early adopter, 1910-1911...compared to the QC/Canadian women's movement which began in 1912...the usual barriers against suffrage and how Camille was not on the radar for the Maine women's suffrage at the time, early 1900s...why I wanted her in the exhibit at the Maine State Muse, this time around ...and then examining the women of Maine who have served in the Maine State Legislature, 33 found, thus far, serving since 1935!...and some …