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Gender Reflections: A Reconsideration Of Pictish Mirror And Comb Symbols, Traci N. Billings

Theses and Dissertations

The interpretation of prehistoric iconography is complicated by the tendency to project

contemporary male/female gender dichotomies into the past. Pictish monumental stone sculpture

in Scotland has been studied over the last 100 years. Traditionally, mirror and comb symbols

found on some stones produced in Scotland between AD 400 and AD 900 have been interpreted

as being associated exclusively with women and/or the female gender. This thesis re-examines

this assumption in light of more recent work to offer a new interpretation of Pictish mirror and

comb symbols and to suggest a larger context for their possible meaning. Utilizing the Canmore

database, …

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, …

Establishing Female Resistance As Tradition In Country Music: Towards A More Refined Discourse, Catherine Keron

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis analyzes facets of resistance in the lyrics of female country music performers and explores how their articulations of female resistance draw on and rework Appalachian folk traditions within country music. Beginning with the musical practices of Appalachian women, who used music to lament their lives restricted by domestic responsibilities, this thesis examines expressions of female resistance through lyrical analysis, with a concentration on female country performers from 1995 to the present. Despite evolving into a performance tradition, female resistance in country music continues to address the lived experiences of its female audience. As such, the female resistance tradition …

Queer Literary Criticism And The Biographical Fallacy, Shawna Lipton

Theses and Dissertations

“Queer Literary Criticism and the Biographical Fallacy” engages with three fields of inquiry within literary studies: queer literary criticism, modernist studies, and author theory. By looking at the critical reception of four iconic queer modernist authors – Oscar Wilde, Henry James, Radclyffe Hall, and Virginia Woolf– this dissertation reinvestigates the relation between criticism and the figure of the author. Queer criticism-- despite its fundamental critique of identity—relies on the identity of the author when it blurs the distinction between the literary text and the author’s biography. Ultimately this work provides a deeper understanding of the queer relation to the modernist …

The Best Poor Man's Country?: William Penn, Quakers, And Unfree Labor In Atlantic Pennsylvania, Peter B. Kotowski

Dissertations

William Penn’s writings famously emphasized notions of egalitarianism, just governance, and moderation in economic pursuits. Twentieth-century scholars took Penn’s rhetoric at his word and interpreted colonial Pennsylvania as nothing less than “the best poor man’s country,” as reflected in the title of one of the most popular histories of the colony. They also imagined a world where all men had access to economic opportunity and lived free from the barbarity endemic to Atlantic world colonies. Despite this halcyon vision of the Peaceable Kingdom, the reality was the opposite: a colony where religious convictions justified what we today (and radicals then) …