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Marie De France And The Wife Of Bisclavret: A New Understanding, Katie Despeaux

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

Marie de France’s werewolf lai, Bisclavret, was met with immediate and long-lasting fascination, replication, and criticism. As part of what Caroline Walker Bynum calls “the werewolf renaissance,” the story breaks with traditional understandings of werewolves: Bisclavret is not the villain of the story but presents instead as a sympathetic character, victimized by his wife’s collaboration with another man who steals his clothes and prevents him from regaining his human form.

Modern scholarship generally falls within two opposite camps: those for whom the wife is disloyal to her husband; and those for whom Marie herself was disloyal to her gender. …

William Blake's Satan As A Hermaphrodite, Genevieve E. Hartsock

Art & Art History ETDs

Depictions of Satan had started off with a grotesque and monstrous figure, but depictions of and attitudes towards the character shifted with the publication of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. However, although the aesthetics of the figure shifted, I argue that William Blake’s renderings of Satan continue the tradition of rendering them as monstrous and grotesque in a new way, in that Blake renders Satan as a hermaphrodite. Attitudes towards hermaphrodites has shifted over time, but the attitude of regarding them as unnatural or monstrous harkens back to ancient Greece, and these attitudes were only furthered with time and the advent …

Three Chapters On Transportation And Its Impact On Employment And Health Visits For Low-Income Adults In The Southwest, Michael Hensley

Economics ETDs

Many barriers to employment and healthcare access in the United States exist. Barriers to employment include lack of education, homelessness, or a criminal background. Barriers to healthcare include lack of insurance, lack of medical knowledge, and the inability to pay for service. This dissertation examines the role of transportation access and if transportation access is a burden for employment and healthcare access in the Southwest United States. This dissertation also examines if those differences are different based on gender, race, and ethnicity. The 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) serves as the data source for this dissertation.

Chapter 1 gives …

El Duende: Folktale, Oral History, And The Construction Of Gendered And Racialized Discourses In Quito, Carolina Bucheli Penafiel

Latin American Studies ETDs

El Duende is a popular mythical character featured in written and oral traditions in Latin America and Spain, where it is often described as particularly dangerous for women. In this research project, I focus on this character to explore the cultural and social meanings of these narratives in the Ecuadorian context, specifically in the city of Quito. Applying oral history methodology, I collected nine participants’ narratives about El Duende and conducted a discourse analysis of these stories. In this thesis, I discuss ways in which the stories about El Duende reproduce narratives of traditional gender role expectations and violence against …

Reinventing Maternity In Chariton's Callirhoe, Christine Ellis

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This project analyzes Chariton’s construction of maternity in his Greek novel Callirhoe. I argue that Chariton heavily employs intertexts and allusions throughout his novel, especially with regard to his female protagonists. Through these allusions, Chariton is not only able to insert himself and his work within the literary canon, but he is also able to develop his genre by juxtaposing his heroine with those of the genres of tragedy and epic. Topics of analysis range from debates about killing one’s child to the importance of marital memory. By the end of his novel, Chariton is able both to establish …

Resisting The Victimization: Examining Ideological Tensions Of Race, Gender, Sexuality And Transnationality Among First-Generation Chinese Migrant Women In U.S. Academia, Zhao Ding

Communication ETDs

This dissertation explored the daily experiences of first-generation Chinese migrant women who study and/or work in universities and colleges in the United States of America. Drawing on previous scholarship on whiteness studies and Asian American gender and sexuality studies with femiqueer perspectives, the primary goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of these Chinese migrant women’s daily experiences and negotiations with power relations concerning race, gender, and sexuality, and to challenge the dominant perceptions and constructions of Chinese/Asian women. By analyzing their narratives of everyday experiences, I found that white heteronormative patriarchal ideologies have been globally promoted, …

Beach Bodies: Gender And The Beach In American Culture, 1880-1940, Margaret Elena Depond

History ETDs

This dissertation argues that American beaches, within the world of leisure and pleasure, were significant contested spaces of social change and debate. Overtime, from about 1880 to 1940, social restrictions loosened at the beach, allowing men, women, and people of color to express themselves in ways that had been previously controlled, curtailed, or proscribed. The emergence of mass popular amusements at the beach attracted a wide array of the American population. Both working-class and middle-class Americans absorbed the culture of new beach attractions, such as amusement parks, piers, boardwalks, and bathhouses. In doing so, they interacted more with each other …

Subverting The Nature Of Thing: Gender Agency In Spiritual Systems And Contemporary Performances Of Zimbabwe's Shona People, Rujeko S. Dumbutshena

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Gender, ritual and performance in the Shona cultures of Zimbabwe, are inexorably linked. They demonstrate how the flexibility of the Shona spiritual systems offers agency to ritual leaders and practitioners. The story of Murumbi Karivara, a Shona rainmaker from the 19th Century, provides the inspirational imagery for the researcher’s Masters of Fine Arts thesis concert DE RERUM NATURA - the way things are (performed on September 2 and 3, 2018). The researcher positions herself among contemporary Shona artists living in Zimbabwe and abroad who negotiate the spaces they occupy during ceremonies, on concert stages, and in institutions; to find autonomy …

A Multi-Level Study Of Clearance: The Role Of Gender, Jenna Dole

Sociology ETDs

Objective. To examine the role that gender plays in the clearance of a reported criminal incident, and whether it varies across places. Methods. Using multi-level logistic regressions, data from the 2014 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), 2010 Census data, 2013 Law Enforcement Management Statistics, and the 2010 Municipal Yearbook are used to examine the effects of a victim’s sex on crime clearance. Results. Women are initially advantaged in clearance before controlling for any evidentiary factors. However, most of the relationship is explained away when controlling for the relationship between the victim and the offender. Women are more likely to be …

The Indigenous Sovereign Body: Gender, Sexuality And Performance., Michelle S. Mcgeough, Michelle Susan Mcgeough

Art & Art History ETDs

Gender variance and artist production are not topics that are often discussed within the discipline of art history. In fact gender variance and in particular its relationship to sexual orientation was not a topic studied, much less discussed outside of the medical community until the mid-twentieth century. It was generally thought that sexuality and gender were “biologically determined” and deviation from the heterosexual norm was considered pathological. In contrast, Indigenous nations in Canada and the United States had a very different understanding regarding the relationship between gender, biology, and sexual object of choice. One area that provides us with a …

The Female Writer And Her Female Characters: A Coming Of Age Story, Stephanie N. Grilo

Theatre & Dance ETDs

In this essay, I review my growth and learning as a playwright in this MFA program. I position my play, Red Dirt, within the context of psychoanalysis and feminist theory as a study of the behavioral patterns that emerge when female melancholia and violent masculinity collide. I examine the praxis of my writing and research methodologies, as well as the technical, thematic, and academic aspects of my writing practice.

Modeling The Trauma-Antisociality Relationship As Mediated By World Assumptions: Associations With Gender And Drinking Outcomes, Kathryn Fokas

Psychology ETDs

Previous research has established links between traumatic experiences and externalizing pathology including substance use and antisocial behavior, but little is known about potential mechanisms linking these phenomena. This study proposed a novel conceptual model linking these phenomena via the cognitive mechanism of negative world assumptions, or beliefs about the inherent dangerousness and unpredictability of life and others. Given previous mixed findings, this study also sought to explore potential interactions between gender and these phenomena. It was hypothesized that, within a sample of adults seeking alcohol treatment, world assumptions would mediate and gender would moderate the trauma-antisociality association. It also was …

The Influence Of Student Characteristics On The Preferred Ways Of Learning Of Online College Students: An Examination Of Cultural Constructs, Linda Barril

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

The ongoing popularity and increased availability of online college courses and programs has attracted a greater diversity of students. Along with continued female-majority enrollment, increasing numbers of students of traditional college age and students from a variety of ethnicity groups are taking online courses. The prevailing guiding assumptions that have informed much of the online pedagogical and instructional practices have primarily come from theories of adult learning, particularly andragogy, which has been heavily criticized for not acknowledging student diversity. As online education becomes ever more established in higher education, it is vital to examine the diversity of contemporary student populations …

Femmage And The Diy Movement: Feminism, Crafty Women, And The Politics Of Gender Performance, Rosemary L. Sallee

American Studies ETDs

Through a variety of lenses, contemporary crafting is examined as a complex and contradictory gender and class performance that serves as a form of communication among women that both enables and contains oppositional and gender role explorations. Crafting is created through myriad texts which transform into an individual form of expression, a societal spectacle, a fashion trend, a subculture, an addiction, a coping mechanism, an oppositional act, and a means of healing both physically and emotionally. This study investigates how the objects women make and collect reflect and define crafters' negotiations between personal desires and public personas, help them voice …

Language, Power, And Ideology In High School Efl Textbooks In Saudi Arabia, Abdullah Al Jumiah

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a research method, I investigated in the present study the discursive intersections between language and ideology with respect to social power and identity in two high school English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) textbooks in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, I critically analyzed how social power and identity based on gender and race were discursively represented in these EFL textbooks. I also critically examined how banking education and neoliberalism as a western political and socioeconomic ideology shaped the content of these EFL textbooks. The results indicate that the overt and hidden discourses in the EFL textbooks I analyzed serve as …

Discourse On Gender, Religion, And Culture In Pakistani Films: A Narrative Analysis Of Contemporary Independent Films From Pakistan, Mohib Rehman

Communication ETDs

This thesis examines the discourse about gender, religion, and culture in four independent films produced in Pakistan between 2000 and 2013 to advocate for women's empowerment: Silent Water and Good Morning Karachi from female director Sabiha Sumar, and In the Name of God and Speak from male director Shoaib Mansoor. I analyzed plot, characterization, dialogues, and visual images to discuss how the filmmakers represented the dynamics of women's oppression, struggle against oppressive agents, and options or solutions for women's empowerment. Further, this project explored the ideological implications of the narratives constructed in the films within the Pakistani society in the …

Human Trafficking Victims Are Everywhere And Nowhere: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of The United States Anti-Human Trafficking Campaign, 2000-2012., Billy James Ulibarri

Sociology ETDs

This dissertation explores the oppositional framing techniques used by actors in the United States anti-human trafficking (AHT) campaign. Theoretically based in symbolic interactionism, I conduct a frame analysis of 12 years of newspaper articles (2000-2012), which comprises the official discourse of the AHT campaign in the United States. I unpack three frame disputes, where claims are challenged and the challenges are rebutted in three primary disputes: 1) the characteristics and experiences of human trafficking victims, 2) the credibility of quantitative estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking, and 3) the justification for the development of new AHT policy tools. Using …

Essays On Gender, Ethnicity, And Health In The United States And Turkey, Tunay Oguz

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is composed of three studies examining barriers to health and healthcare that affect individuals on the basis of their race, ethnicity, and gender. The first study examines access to care disparities between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics. I find that observed characteristics explain all of the disparities in access to care between these two groups, a marked change from a decade ago when characteristics explained only 65 percent. However, disparities in access to care between women and men remain unexplained even when differences in their attitudes and beliefs regarding healthcare are controlled for, especially for Hispanic men and women. …

Reconsidering Fibich’S Šárka: Myth, Gender, And The Construction Of A Nation, Barbora Gregusova

Music ETDs

This work reassesses the standard consensus of Zdeněk Fibich’s (1850-1900) compositional aesthetic in his most popular opera Šárka (1896). Through the use of an interdisciplinary analysis, I set out a new interpretation. I evaluate the location of the composer’s output on the nationalistic-cosmopolitan continuum through comparisons with Smetana’s and Wagner’s compositional tendencies, respectively. I correlate Fibich’s place in the Czech political and social situations as well as conceptions of folk music with the role and depiction of gender. A feminist reading of the opera in light of Fibich’s musical treatment deemphasizes the composer’s cosmopolitan side and, contrary to the popular …

Revealing A Spectrum Of Racialized Sexuality: Representations Of Video Game Characters Over Time, 1981-2012, Kelly Kathleen Mccarthy

Sociology ETDs

While researchers have examined controlling images of race and gender in the media, many have failed to acknowledge the role video games play in the hegemonic domain of power and few have examined the simultaneity of race and gender. This study expands upon existing literature by using video games as a site of racial formation, through which racialized "others" are created and Whiteness is normalized. Through the lens of intersectionality, I examine representations of female characters that appeared in popular video games between 1981 and 2012 and assess changes in racial composition, sexualization, narrative role, and aggression. A content analysis …

Gender, Jobs And Labor: Understanding The Gendered Division Of Household Labor In Dual Earner, Middle Class Families Based On Job Dynamics, Jessica Carlisle

Sociology ETDs

Despite the fact that women have made large strides in education and the workforce, they still do a significant amount of the traditional household labor. Past research shows that economic variables such as education, income, and available time as well as beliefs regarding gender norms and values can affect the variation of time spent in domestic labor for both men and women. However, inconsistencies in past research warrant the use of other models or theories to better understand this division. This study aims to understand this division through the use of the job dynamics' theory. This theory consists of scores …

United States V. Booker And Federal Sentencing Outcomes: General, Extra-Legal, And Contextual Policy Effects, Jeffrey Nowacki

Sociology ETDs

Judicial discretion plays an important role in the sentencing process. Unrestrained discretion has the potential to lead to unwarranted disparity in sentencing outcomes. In an effort to constrain some of that discretion, the Federal Sentence Guidelines were implemented in 1987 so that judges were to consider just an offenders criminal history and the severity of the offense when determining sentences. In the 2005 Supreme Court case United States v. Booker, these guidelines were ruled unconstitutional and in violation of the 6th Amendment. This dissertation examines sentencing outcomes in the wake of this landmark decision. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing …

Reproducing Prevention: Teen Pregnancy And Intimate Citizenship In The Post-Welfare Era, Clare Daniel

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines the politics of teen pregnancy prevention in the 1990s and early 2000s within public policy, popular culture, and local and national nonprofit advocacy. Widely viewed as a distressing social problem, teenage reproduction has provoked decades of prevention and regulation that pervade across public and private sectors. Teen pregnancy has been associated with, if not fully blamed for, a host of other so-called social problems throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and the beginning of the twenty-first century. As scholars such as Kristen Luker and Lisa Arai have labored to illustrate, causal connections between adolescent reproduction and the social ills …

Women And Cultural Production: Fiestas, Families, And Foodways In San Rafael, New Mexico, Stephanie M. Sanchez

Anthropology ETDs

Historically, New Mexico scholars and folklorists have often omitted womens roles in Hispanic cultural production and heritage maintenance. However, women make significant contributions to the retention, transmission, and adaptation of traditional Hispanic practices. In this dissertation, I examine how particular Hispanic women, who I refer to as 'center women' (Brodkin Sacks 1988), from a small village named San Rafael, New Mexico mobilize their families and other community members in order to successfully perform traditional New Mexican events such as the annual fiesta in honor of the local patron saint, Las Posadas, a Christmas time novena, and Good Friday commemorations. These …

Touching Nether-Regionalisms: Paul Cadmus As Exemplary Foil To A Homegrown American Art, Maxine Marks

Art & Art History ETDs

The struggle over who writes our histories and who is included in those histories resonates within the broader scope of my project where I examine such productions and deliberations of American identity through U.S. visual language and artistic production. I challenge exclusive ideas of Americanness' and counter such exclusions within Regionalism via the artistic production of Paul Cadmus. I specifically explore issues of gender, race and class in the artworks of U.S. artist Paul Cadmus, his resulting impact on the Regionalist movement and the heteronormative masculine identity that emerges from within Regionalism. I illuminate Cadmus's contributions to Regionalism, rebuild connections …

Reel Queer: Emergent Discourses And Contexts Of Queer Youth Identity Constructions And Experiences In Digital Video Projects, Sarah Lindsey Beck

Communication ETDs

My thesis examines the discourses present in digital video projects created by queer youth, ages 13-20, who participated in The Reel Queer Youth video mentorship program between 2009 and 2012. I used textual analysis, specifically discourse and critical technocultural discourse analysis to explore constructions of identity in youth and experiences present in digital video projects and the contexts these discourses were produced within. I identified three overarching discursive themes: (a) call for more complex understandings of queer youth identities and experiences; (b) concern regarding gender binaries; and (c) change and self-responsibility. In addition to the discursive themes, I identified and …

Harold Camping And May 21, 2011: Rationalizations, Leader Responses, And Gender Differences Following A Failed Prophecy, Christin L. Moreland

Sociology ETDs

Previous studies regarding failed prophecies have focused on believers responses following a failed prophecy, along with how believers rationalize and convince others of the prediction's fulfillment. The literature does not address the reaction of leaders following a failed prophecy or indicate a gendered experience within prophetic groups. This case study looks at the May 21st, 2011 rapture prediction, and subsequent failure, of Harold Camping. My research investigates new rationalizations utilized by followers and leaders of a prophetic ministry, observes the reaction of a leader towards critics, and recognizes a gendered dynamic at play within apocalyptic communities. Upon transcribing podcasts from …

Azúcar Negra: (Re) Envisioning Race, Representation, And Resistance In The Afrofeminista Imaginary, Kiley Jeanelle Guyton Acosta

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation, I locate contemporary articulations of afrofeminismo in manifold modes of cultural production including literature, music, visual displays of the body, and digital media. As a point of departure, I examine the development of afrofeminismo in relation to colonial sexual violence in sugar-based economies to explain how colonial dynamics inflect ideologies of blanqueamiento/embranquecimento (racial whitening) and pseudo-scientific racial determinism. In this context, I address representations of the mujer negra (black woman) and the mulata (mulatto woman) in Caribbean and Brazilian cultural discourse. Specifically, I analyze how the discourses around, as well as by, these figures contribute(d) to the …

Embracing Evil: The Threat And Allure Of The Female In Greek Poetry, Caley S. Mcguill

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

Modern scholars have often noted the harsh depictions of women in Greek literature and account for them as simply part of the tradition of Greek misogyny' that exists throughout ancient Greek texts from the archaic period to classical times. This project argues that these sentiments, which have so often been described as 'Greek misogyny' in literature, in fact embody a more complicated and nuanced concept. My objective in this project is to explore the ways in which select 'misogynistic' Greek texts express what I call 'gyno-anxiety': the fear that arises from male vulnerability to and dependence upon women, who represent …

Le Rôle Du Hammam Féminin Dans La Construction Et La Consolidation Des Identités Sexuées En Algérie Et Au Maroc, Nina Bauwens

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

The traditional women's hammam, or public bath, is a key space in the Arabo-Muslim societies of Algeria and Morocco. In those two countries, the division between men and women, still important today, is also noticeable inside the public bath, since men and women do not mingle. The question of gendered identity appears. More than a distinction between sexes, it is a social distinction between a man's identity and a woman's identity that is relevant here. It is essential to be able to distinguish to which 'group' each person belongs. Thus, the notions of individual identity, and then of gendered identity …