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"A Narrative Is A Living Body”: Trans-Relations In Contemporary Transmasculine Fiction, Madison Rougier

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores how recent novels are able to expand representations of transgender experiences and promote identification with these characters and their experiences, even if the reader is not trans themself. It begins by delving into a brief history of transgender narrative and the problems associated with these narratives having been primarily in the form of memoir. It then examines how Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country, despite being one of the first instances of a fictional narrative focused on a transgender man, reflects similarly problematic narrative characteristics to those found in memoir. Proposing a concept of trans-relational reading, which promotes identifications …

Declarations Of Womanhood: Trans Lives, Livelihoods, And Afterlives Of American Women 1890-1954, Juniper Oxford

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

“Declarations of Womanhood” examines the lives of individuals who were assigned male at birth and lived as women in the decades before the availability of sex reassignment surgery in the United States and the highly sensationalized transition of Christine Jorgensen. Shifting focus away from medical transition, of which the fifties-era press contended that individuals like Jorgensen and Charlotte McLeod “became” women through the act of surgery, this study moves toward a focus on social transition, exemplified through the words, actions, and social interactions of women moved away from their assigned gender before the 1950s. With their stories recounted in local …

Organizational Supports Of Rape Culture In Higher Education, Mary Beth Seller

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Rape culture has roots in our gendered history of the United States which manifests itself on college campuses as well. Attending college has been found to be the riskiest time for women in terms of sexual assault, as up to 1 in 4 women may experience some type of sexual assault or attempt during their collegiate years. This study explored how one college campus, the University of Vermont (UVM), has organizational policies, procedures and values that are perceived to support rape culture on campus.

Guided by critical feminist theory as its epistemological foundation, this qualitative study uses an applied thematic …

Making Meaning Through Leadership: An Exploration Of College Men, Masculinity, And Motivation To Lead, Katharine Stango

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In my previous role as the Assistant Director for Campus Programs at the University of Vermont, (UVM) I noticed fewer and fewer college men pursing leadership opportunities during their time in college. Student affairs practitioners and scholars recognize the benefits and enhanced outcomes students gain by participating in meaningful activities in college (Astin, 1984; Dugan, 2006; Komives et al., 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Quaye et al., 2019; Tinto, 1987). When college men are responsible for higher numbers of conduct violations, sexual misconduct issues, and high risk drug and alcohol use in college (Harper & Harris, 2010; Young et al., …

Familiar Forms, Unfamiliar Containers: A Formal Examination Of The Body, Mind, And Community In Black Women’S Science Fiction And Fantasy, Cameron Clark Bauserman

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Black Women’s writing is ultimately a study in intersectionality and, as such, formalism provides a productive ontology for parsing the intersections of various forms. Using formal theorists Anna Kornbluh and Caroline Levine’s works as a starting point, this thesis examines the formal treatment of the body, mind, and community in Black Women’s Science Fiction and Fantasy (BWSFF), specifically in the works of N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler. The act of defining genre is a historically informed act. As such, this thesis demarcates BWSFF as its own distinct genre because of its treatment of the aforementioned forms. Furthermore, the works within …

“A Mighty Woman With A Torch”: Dorothy Thompson’S Call For American Action Against Nazism And Jewish Persecution, 1931-1945, Kiara Brynne Day

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

During the interwar period in the United States, the looming threat of Nazi Germany and the persecution of Jews was not at the forefront of American minds. However, one prominent journalist and activist, Dorothy Thompson, made it her life’s mission to turn complacency into action. This research explores the American response to Nazism, the refugee crisis, and the Holocaust from the biographical perspective of this American woman who, significantly, was the first foreign journalist expelled from Nazi Germany. Combining American, German, and women’s history, this thesis tells the story of Thompson’s underappreciated role in American journalism and politics as well …

Queer Anxieties In Washington State History, Michael Diambri

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Through the interpretative lens of “queer anxieties,” this thesis overviews the history of cultural anxieties about nonnormative gender and sexuality in Washington State since 1889. While employing a capacious “queer” framework, this study highlights the creation, dissemination, and management of individual and cultural anxieties about gender and sexuality. In doing so, this study posits how an “anxious turn” can benefit the study of Washington’s history. Ranging from the 1880s to 1990s, this work overviews a wide variety of phenomena which invoked anxiety including: sodomy laws, interracial sexual relations, cross-dressing, the creation of homosocial male spaces, gay travel, LGBT activist organizations, …

Recalibrating Our Moral Compass: How America's Narrowing Value System Is Erasing Lgbtq+ People In Schools, Andrew Levalley

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis bridges the effects of society—meaning politics, policies, norms, and values—and school on LGBTQ+ students. Paramount educational philosophers, namely Dewey, Freire, Berliner, and Illich, understood that schools are a reflection of the communities they serve. I apply this common philosophy to the LGBTQ+ community to uncover the systems of inequalities that have negative effects on LGBTQ+ youth in order to promote better systems that include both LGBTQ+ youth and the larger LGBTQ+ community. To illustrate the effects of society and school on the LGBTQ+ community and youth, I use traditional peer reviewed researched data, current events that showcase America’s …

Autobiography She Wrote: Agatha Christie And The Problem Of Female Authorship, Jesse Marie Keel

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Best known for being a best-selling author of mystery and detective fiction, little attention has been paid to the six non-mystery novels Agatha Christie wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Moreover, other than in biographical studies, scant critical attention exists surrounding her autobiography. Taking these seven overlooked texts into consideration, this thesis seeks to build on current Christie scholarship by looking at Christie’s commercially constructed authorial persona and looking at the ways in which the Mary Westmacott novels can be read as a form of alternative biography. By offering a close reading of both Christie’s autobiography, the work of her …

Unmasking A Medieval Pseudo-Saint: The Peculiar Story Of Sibylla Of Marsal In Richer's Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae, Courtney Anne Smith

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the story of a thirteenth-century woman from the diocese of Metz, named Sibylla of Marsal, as the contemporary monk and chronicler Richer of Senones recounts it in his Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae. According to Richer, Sibylla feigned sanctity using various props--including a demon costume that she wore to terrify villagers--and was locally venerated as a holy woman before authorities discovered her fraudulence. This thesis offers the first full-length study of Sibylla and is the first study of this fascinating case to focus on Richer's perspective. After establishing the single extant thirteenth-century manuscript of the Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae--Paris, BnF …

An Educator's Journey Of Finding Post-Traumatic Growth After Intimate Partner Violence Through Scholarly Personal Narrative Writing: Implications For Survivors, Advocates, And Educators, Alexandra T. Spannaus

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis, I share my personal story of finding healing—post-traumatic growth—after experiencing intimate partner violence seven years ago. Written in Scholarly Personal Narrative format, I dig into my own past, draw upon research and scholarship to better understand and make meaning of and from my experiences, and finally, make connections with other survivors, advocates, and educators through my narrative. I discuss how survivors of intimate partner violence can move closer to healing; provide practical tips on how individuals and educators can support survivors and better understand the complexities of abusive relationships; and explain how educators can use writing, specifically …

Phantom Limb: An Exploration Of Queer Manner In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Tales, Casey Michelle O'Reilly

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The term “phantom limb” is used to describe the phenomenal tingling sensation that occurs in the nerve endings of an amputated limb; though the limb is no longer physically attached to the body, the person experiences pain and physical sensation in the space the limb once occupied. Though the body part has been removed, it haunts both the body and the brain. It is through this metaphor that I am interested in investigating the connection between the disembodied and the embodied.

The disembodied connects to the embodied through the loss or lack of a bodily form; the embodied, therefore, links …

Simulacra Of The (Un)Real: Reading Margaret Atwood’S Lady Oracle As A Feminist Text Of Bodily Resistance, Kimberly Michelle Dean

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis project is centered on the female body, specifically body image, in relation to Western, cultural images of women. This is a problem that has been around, essentially, since the beginning of Western art. While different scholars argue whether or not this problem has become worse, it is nonetheless problematic that we are still, in 2018, fighting patriarchy’s control of our bodies via body image. Grounding my project in Susan Bordo’s 1993 text Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, this thesis explores Bordo’s argument that the female body is culturally produced through the lens of Jean Baudrillard’s …

"Don't Tell Them I Eat Weeds," A Study Of Gatherers Of Wild Edibles In Vermont Through Intersectional Identities, Elissa J. Johnson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As wild edibles gain in popularity both on restaurant menus and as a form of recreation through their collection, research on contemporary foragers/wildcrafters/gatherers of wild edibles has so increased from varied disciplinary perspectives. Through an exploration of gatherers in Vermont, I examine the relationships between practice and identity. By employing intersectionality through feminist ethnographic methods, this research recognizes the complex intersections of individuals' identities that challenge a more simplified, additive approach to definitions of race, class, gender and the myriad identities that inform one's experience of privilege and oppression. As prior scholarship has established, people from diverse ethnicities, genders, religions, …

Shaping Policy In The Anthropocene: Gender Justice As A Social, Economic And Ecological Challenge, Phoebe Spencer

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Environmental pressures such as natural disasters, resource scarcity, and conflict related to climate change have emphasized the importance of considering social justice within its ecological context. Gender inequality is one type of injustice that has traditionally been addressed as a social matter, yet gendered divisions in bargaining power, mobility, and access to resources are exacerbated by environmental instability. One barrier to gender equity in the face of a changing climate is the mainstream economic paradigm, which promotes growth and individualism, often at the cost of environmental and social wellbeing. The issue of gender inequality in the Anthropocene, the proposed geological …

Hiding In Plain Sight: How Binary Gender Assumptions Complicate Efforts To Meet Transgender Students' Name And Pronoun Needs, Dot Brauer

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Existing literature about transgender college students calls upon higher education organizations to support trans students' use of self-identified first names (in place of legal names, given at birth) and self-identified pronouns (in place of assumed pronouns based on sex assigned at birth, or other's perceptions of physical appearance), but that literature lacks guidance on how to achieve this work, which is deceptively complex. This study addressed this gap in the literature in two ways. First by using critical theory to show how hegemonic, binary notions of gender shape intellectual, social, and regulatory dimensions of higher education in ways that complicate …

Nurse Practitioners' Discussion Of Sexual Identity, Attraction And Behavior, Sarah J. Mclaughlin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

Background: Sexual orientation is comprised of distinct components, including sexual identity, sexual attraction and sexual behavior. Lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents are at an increased risk of experiencing poor health outcomes compared to non-sexual minority youth. Health care professional organizations recommend that health care providers discuss each component of sexual orientation at every adolescent health supervision visits in order to best assess the adolescent's health risks and needs for intervention and education.

Objective: This survey assessed the frequency with which nurse practitioners (NPs) in the state of Vermont discussed sexual identity, attraction and behavior with adolescents during annual health …

Gendering Fiction: A Mixed Methods Examination Of The Influence Of The "Boy" Book/ "Girl" Book Phenomenon On The Willingness To Read Of Young Adolescents, Megan Farley Munson-Warnken

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Well-meaning educators often recommend more "boy" books to increase reading motivation amongst boys. This experimental mixed-methods study investigated the influence of the "boy" book/ "girl" book phenomenon on willingness to read using a researcher-designed instrument called the Textual Features Sort (TFS). The TFS measured two attitudinal constructs—gendered beliefs about texts and willingness to read—in relation to individual textual features of selected young adult novels. Data came from 50 sixth and seventh grade students at a mid-sized public school in a rural New England state. Mean scores, frequencies, and percentages were analyzed using independent samples t-tests, paired t-tests, and Fisher's exact …

Boys, Writing, And The Literacy Gender Gap: What We Know, What We Think We Know, Nancy Disenhaus

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The existence of a persistent gender gap in literacy achievement, and particularly in writing, is not in dispute: boys trail girls in every assessment at state, national, and international levels. Yet although this basic fact is not in dispute, nearly everything else concerning the gender gap in literacy achievement--its causes, consequences, and potential solutions--remains hotly contested, particularly in the public and professional discourse. Scholarly research offers insights that frequently challenge the prevailing public discourse, but this research has been conducted primarily in the U.K., Australia, and Canada, leaving the experiences of U.S. students largely unexplored. Herein lies the problem: an …

Damned If You Do--Damned If You Don't: A Queer Woman Of Color's Journey Of Trauma, Agency, And Leadership, Windy Paz-Amor

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

Navigating systems of leadership in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in higher education as a Queer Woman of Color can be a challenging and complex process--one that integrates identity, experience, expertise, knowledge, patience, and most importantly the ability to risk; while remaining authentic and professional. It is a balance, which in my own experience and expertise requires constant reflection, evaluation, and adaptation. A negotiation of owning that one has power and agency, while realizing that the many intersecting identities that one holds influences how dominant culture perceives that power and agency. To reach authentic reflection and evaluation in leadership it …

Modifiable Risk Factors For Cardiovascular Disease As Perceived By Women In Kenya, Catherine Wanjiru Lawrence

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) worldwide has grown exponentially in the last two decades and while sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been grappling with the crippling effects of epidemic infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, cardiovascular disease is now emerging as a grievous concern. Research and resources have largely been directed toward understanding and curtailing infectious diseases in the African continent. But as the risk of cardiovascular disease reaching endemic proportions in sub-Saharan Africa becomes more evident, research is critically needed in order to understand how to manage it and more importantly to direct the development and implementations of culturally relevant prevention …

Supporting A Growing Agricultural Economy By Understanding Child Care In Farm Families, Emily Stengel

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis argues for the consideration of child care accessibility and costs as one factor in the success and wellbeing of farmers in the United States. There is a long tradition in rural studies of recognizing that farms are not just economic enterprises but are family-based social enterprises as well, with household level issues and family roles that are both acknowledged and contested. However, child care is missing from virtually all scholarly and public discussions of agricultural workforce development - even more so than other social services and family supports. Additionally, the agricultural sector, considered as a portion of U.S. …

The Passion Within: Challenging The Feminine Mystique By Educating Midlife Women To Fulfill Their Career Dreams, Kelly Depaolo

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This study is a very personal reflection. The purpose of the study is to illuminate how following the calling of my heart led to a deeper passion in my own work whereupon I realized my natural and limitless creative potential. It is a blending of my narrative with research conducted over a ten year time period on midlife women, work, and the search for passion within. The capacity and fostering of creativity became a focus in my writing because that is exactly where my spirit has led me. It has been my personal joy to put something in this world …

Out Of The Closet And Into The Woods; Nature As A Model For Resilience During Gay Identity Development., Lance Johnson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Navigating the process of coming out led to feelings of isolation, depression, and a loss of self-worth that were compounded by a period filled with negative social media and mainstream messaging. This thesis explores how an understanding of the systems and processes of nature as well as physical exposure to nature offered a place of healing and an avenue for understanding my identity as a Gay man: from identity confusion all the way through to identity synthesis. Using Scholarly Personal Narrative Methodology, I will interweave poetry and counter narrative storytelling to illustrate the significance of nature during my identity development. …

Wanting It Told: Narrative Desire In Cather And Faulkner, Monroe Street

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the role played by narrative desire within two modernist experimentations with novel form: Willa Cather's 1918 novel My Antonia and William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936). In it, I argue that Cather and Faulkner utilize framing narratives in order to present the main plot of each novel as a product of multiple narrators' desire for a story to emerge. In My Antonia, it is the expressed wish of Jim Burden's nameless writer friend that compels him to finish writing his account of Antonia, which constitutes the main plot of the novel. Meanwhile, in Absalom, Absalom! it is …

Provision Of Reproductive Health Care Services By Nurse Practitioners And Certified Nurse Midwives: Unintended Pregnancy Prevention And Management In Vermont, Erica Lyons

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Background: In the United States, currently about half (49%) of the 6.7 million pregnancies are reported as mistimed or unplanned, and this rate of unintended pregnancy is significantly higher than the rate in most other developed countries. Abortion services are critical to the prevention and management of unintended pregnancies. Abortion in the United States has been legal since the 1973; however this right has little meaning without access to safe abortion care and access is declining. Medication abortion, the use of medications to induce abortion and terminate an early pregnancy, has been legal in the United States since 2000, is …

The Victorian Governess As Spectacle Of Pain: A Cultural History Of The British Governess As Withered Invalid, Bloody Victim And Sadistic Birching Madam, From 1840 To 1920, Ruby Ray Daily

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the celebrity of governesses in British culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Victorian governess-mania was as pervasive as it was inexplicable, governesses comprising only a tiny fraction of the population and having little or no ostensible effect on the social, political, or economic landscape. Nevertheless, governesses were omnipresent in Victorian media, from novels and etiquette manuals to paintings, cartoons and pornography. Historians and literary critics have long conjectured about the root cause of popular fixation on the governess, and many have theorized that their cultural resonance owed to the host of contradictions and social conundrums …

Campus Climate Perceptions Of Queer College Students Of Color: Disidentifying The Rainbow, Khristian Kemp-Delisser La'mount Kemp-Delisser

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation explored the experience lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer students of col-or. Influenced by the Queer of Color theoretical framework, this dissertation employed multiple methodological traditions (namely qualitative and Scholarly Personal Narrative), to deepen the exploration and unlock multiple dimensions of experience of queer college students of color.

Analysis of the student interviews produced 29 themes. The results are, framed by four categories of campus climate (behavioral, socio-historical, psychological, and structural or compo-sitional (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998).), and offer a glimpse into the inter-locking dynamics of racism and homophobia that the queer students of color navigate in …