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Men, Women, And Italians: The Masquerade Of Narrative And Identity In Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, Ruth A. Holmes May 2023

Men, Women, And Italians: The Masquerade Of Narrative And Identity In Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison, Ruth A. Holmes

English Theses & Dissertations

The chaotic masquerades that proliferated during the British long eighteenth century punctuated the period’s preoccupation with order and categorization. The identity categories that the masquerade disrupted, the novel reinforced, or perhaps even created. It was in the middle of this period, in the political center of Britain, that Samuel Richardson published his third and final novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), a novel which centers England and was also centered by England, a national treasure entangled in literary and cultural history. Tracing the nexus of gender and nationalism in Grandison then becomes important given the novel’s active entanglement …


Keats And Shelley: A Pursuit Towards Progressivism, Serenah Minasian Apr 2021

Keats And Shelley: A Pursuit Towards Progressivism, Serenah Minasian

Theses and Dissertations

An analyzation of the poems, letters, and works of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley from a perspective focusing on the history of sexuality, breaking gender binaries, and pushing towards progressivism. This thesis proves how John Keats is both an effeminate man who displays exemplary ways of breaking gender expectations but also a man who possess misogynistic tendencies. Also, this thesis analyzes Percy Shelley’s use of gender expectations and how he breaks them with the use of his characters. Studying these two British Romantics shows how these two cisgender, straight, white men provide an ability to push back on their …


In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin Sep 2019

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …


Thalassic: Women, Gender, And The Sublime In Relation To Marine Art, Kelsy Patnaude Jun 2019

Thalassic: Women, Gender, And The Sublime In Relation To Marine Art, Kelsy Patnaude

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

The sea may be regarded as a source of tranquility as well as one of unsettling trepidation, ambiguous even in its representation. Those who are called to it must be relentless in the face of uncertainty; what awaits them is the immeasurable sublime. Defined in art as a reference to greatness beyond all possibility of control, the sublime invokes an urge to pursue pleasurable terror in the unmanageable. On heavily trafficked and dangerous seas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the strict gender hierarchy of authority on board ships in seafaring industries was solidified. Thus, the dominance of the male …


Frida's Daughter, Myrta Vida Apr 2017

Frida's Daughter, Myrta Vida

Theses

The purpose of my creative writing is to highlight a group of U.S. citizens still woefully underrepresented in literature proper: the Latinx middle class. I’m keenly interested in exploring Puerto Rican and first- and second-generation Latinx immigrant stories. Even though some of the experiences from these groups have been elegantly visited by writers such as Giannina Braschi, Sandra Cisneros, Junot Diaz, Julia Alvarez, and others, there are nuances to the Latinx middle class experience that are yet to be uncovered. Being stuck in the cultural, linguistic, socio-economic, and political middles in a country that has recently taken a largely nationalist …


Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett Dec 2016

Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that with the rise of the middle-class, Victorian England saw the development of a power model in which middle-class men, middle-class women and disenfranchised bodies of children and lower-class women suffered from the demands of bodily domination. Because the bodily health of middle-class men was believed to represent national health, it was imperative that he dominate his body, particularly with regard to sexual urges. Consequently, the bodies of women with whom he sought sexual release suffered from forms of bodily domination as well. Through an analysis of journals and private writings of those living in Victorian England, …


The Spectacle Of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans In Postbellum Fiction, Afrin Zeenat Jul 2015

The Spectacle Of Orphanhood: Reimagining Orphans In Postbellum Fiction, Afrin Zeenat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Orphan iconography has always been deployed in American literature and culture, but nineteenth-century American literature, fiction in particular, abounds in orphans, both real and imaginary. The orphan’s amphibious nature is hailed and demonized as the epitome of individualism and unbridled freedom, and also as the location of society’s anxiety. This complicated and conflicted construction of orphans animates the Social and cultural realm in postbellum America, foregrounding issues of class, race, and gender.


"Murderous Mania": Gender And Homicide In Milwaukee Newspapers, 1840-1900, Kadie Kroening Seitz Dec 2014

"Murderous Mania": Gender And Homicide In Milwaukee Newspapers, 1840-1900, Kadie Kroening Seitz

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the ways in which Milwaukee's newspapers used gender norms to make sense of acts of murder during the nineteenth century. First, women victims of men's violence are examined, particularly through the lenses of ethnicity, class and race. Women victims who did not fit into middle class gender norms were less likely to be portrayed as "beautiful female murder victims." Then, women perpetrators of violence (not exclusively against men) are discussed, including a specific examination of women's use of an insanity defense. Newspaper tropes used to describe women's motivations for filicide are also examined, and found to vary …


Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese Dec 2013

Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ellen Gilchrist's works shows the struggles of women living in a postmodern South. This dissertation explores Gilchrist's representations of southern women as they transition from the old South to modernity. Gilchrist's work depicts women who attempt to break off the pedestal of white Southern womanhood, but never quite do, often simultaneously disrupting and confirming traditional notions of a "good Southern lady." Gilchrist shows how women occupy the pedestal as a form of refuge and also as a form of protest. These are women who, as they navigate the transition to a new South, are reluctant to surrender the privilege of …


Divine Fluidity: Shifts Of Gender And Sexuality In Conservative Christian Communities, Sarah Stewart Burgess Apr 2009

Divine Fluidity: Shifts Of Gender And Sexuality In Conservative Christian Communities, Sarah Stewart Burgess

Pomona Senior Theses

This thesis draws on ethnographic research from three communities of conservative Christian women who find empowerment and agency through their religious traditions. Two communities are politically active, outspoken women who also believe strongly in "traditional" roles for women, and one community idealizes conservative standards of sexuality while accepting women who work as sex workers. These women did not view their positions as contradictory, rather, they used religious beliefs and religious practices to enact, embody or explain their complex genders and sexualities. This thesis draws on ethnographic, feminist and queer theories while showcasing the diversity within a movement largely believed to …