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Words With God, Krista Fassett

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

As a studio artist using multiple media, I investigate subjectivity of the female body as depicted within the context of evangelical doctrines and traditions. I explore misogyny and the absence of bodily autonomy in the bible, which designates women as property to be owned, purchased, and sold. Some overlapping themes include religious trauma, domestication, submission, and virginity. The intertwining of topics allows me to share my lived experience, and ignite conversation into certain religious doctrines that simultaneously live among cultural and political lines.

Emphasizing ‘holy’ scripture, my art varies through domestic materiality and includes crocheted textiles, oil paintings, installation with …

Espacio, Edgar Perez Peña, Edgar Perez Peña

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Edgar Perez Peña (He, Him, His) is a Queer, Chicanx contemporary figurative painter, who lives and works in the Los Angeles County. A native of Los Angeles, California, his paintings, and assemblages are a strong combination of process, materials, and content that displays his fascination on how physical/psychological space (from where he resides), reflects on the Queer Brown body and its comfort/discomfort in relation to public and private space.

Peña looks at his artistic practice as an opportunity to explore the human condition from the Queer and Brown perspective as well the beginning of healing through the meditative process of …

Anticolonial Feminism, Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, And The Female Gothic: A Textual Analysis Of Mexican Gothic, Hana Vega

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Latinx authors writing in English are challenging the western literary canon and the way stories are told through a western-centric lens. I argue that Mexican Canadian author Sylvia Moreno Garcia and her novel Mexican Gothic redefines the genre by telling the story of a British family living in 1950’s Mexico from an anti-colonial feminist lens. After a review of the literature on the gothic genre and how authors of color use it to respond to western-centric ideas in their own gothic novels, I am approaching the text using postcolonial and decolonial feminist theories to conduct a textual, genre, and ideological …

Exploring The Rhetorical Power Of Speculative Fiction Through Jewelle Gomez’S The Gilda Stories And Octavia Butler’S Fledgling, Monique Dixon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

There are apparent similarities between Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling. However, this thesis will demonstrate that they share more than similar subject matter and yet differ in substantial ways. Utilizing Black feminist theory and alternative rhetoric this thesis examines how Gomez and Butler harness the potential of speculative fiction to critique the world around them and imagine an alternative world for those who are intersectionally marginalized.

Graduate School Awareness For First-Generation Latinas: Cracking The Glass Ceiling - A Validation Study, Deborah D. Grijalva

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

At this time, the Latinx population is the fastest-growing population in the United States. Latinas account for one in five women in the United States, and by 2060 Latinas will likely make up one-third of the nation’s females. Education is the foundation for both personal and economic well-being, especially as the job market continues to demand higher levels of educational attainment. The Latinx population continues to make up a large portion of the workforce. Latinas’ attendance and admission rates at the graduate level are low. Studies have found that Latinas have obtained the lowest percentage of graduate degrees compared to …

Exploring Cultural And Linguistic Aspects Within The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, And Queer Youth Community, Justine Carrillo, Julie Marie Houston

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural and linguistic aspects within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) youth community. A qualitative research design with an exploratory approach was utilized in this study. An interview questionnaire was created to explore participants’ perceptions and experiences to generate an understanding on LGBTQ culture in practice. The study sample consisted of 12 youth who self‑identify as LGBTQ recruited by snowball sampling. One‑on‑one interviews were conducted, audio‑recorded, per participant consent, and transcribed for thematic analysis. Based on participant narratives, this study found there are cultural considerations that pertain specifically to …

"Purple People": "Sexed" Linguistics, Pleasure, And The "Feminine" Body In The Lyrics Of Tori Amos, Megim A. Parks

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The notion of a “feminine” style has been staunchly resisted by third-wave feminists who argue that to posit a “feminine” style is essentialist. Yet, linguists such as Norma Mendoza-Denton and Elinor Ochs discuss indexicality and shifting through salient variables, a process called entextualization. Further, French feminists such as Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva use the linguistic concept of intertextuality to explain certain poetic uses of language that might cause what Luce Irigaray calls “irruption of the semiotic chora”—moments within language where boundaries in the semiotic chain of signification are “blurred.” Thus, while current feminism has moved strictly away …