Digital Commons Network^™

Saint Brigit And Her Habits: Exploring Queerness In Early Medieval Ireland, Jacqueline K. Stephenson

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Saint Brigit's behavior and reception by society highlight an avenue by which women in the early medieval period could escape societal strictures, exercising agency over their bodies and their romantic choices, and carve out a distinct and unexpected place for themselves in a Christian patriarchal society. In Saint Brigit’s case, this is especially demonstrated by the breadth of her portrayed power as not just a nun but a saint, her extreme resistance to marriage, and her frequent comparisons to men. Indeed, her hagiography, written by Cogitosus in the seventh century, positioned her as one of the three principal and earliest …

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Silent, Or Silenced: Repression Of The Middle Eastern Subaltern, Amanda Arodes

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This paper employs subaltern theory to examine the socio-political landscapes of Palestine and Syria within postcolonial discourse. Drawing from the works of scholars like Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ranajit Guha, and Juan R. Cole, this study uncovers the silenced narratives and marginalized perspectives of the Palestinian and Syrian people. Through a critical analysis of historical, cultural, and political dimensions, the basis of this research explores how subaltern groups in Palestine and Syria navigate structures of power, resistance, and identity formation. The experiences of various subaltern groups, including refugees, women, and ethnic minorities whose voices often remain obscured within dominant discourses are …

A Trauma-Informed Socially Just Approach To Working With Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth Utilizing Expressive Arts Therapy, Ciara Carr

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Youth involved with the juvenile justice system often have a history of trauma and oppression resulting from their positionality and circumstances. Most juvenile justice-involved youth are boys, youth of color, low-income, LGBTQIA2S+, disabled, and traumatized. This literature review explores the history of the juvenile justice system, issues with the present-day model, and trauma-informed and transformative justice approaches to practice. The implementation of socially just, trauma-informed expressive arts therapy programs is proposed as a more equitable practice to replace commonly used punitive practices across the United States. More research is needed to understand the impact of such programs on this population …

Perreando To New Lyrics: Integrating Feminist Reggaeton In Expressive Art Therapy A Literature Review | Perreando A Nueva Lírica: Una Revisión Literaria Sobre Integrar El Reggaetón Feminista A Las Terapias Con Artes Expresivas, Marilina Arsuaga

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This paper presents how feminist reggaeton can be used as a creative tool for women's empowerment. The literature review explores the work that has been done with feminism in expressive arts therapies, defines what feminist reggaeton is, and presents different considerations to incorporate the musical genre into a therapeutic intervention. Among these considerations, there is the social stigma that is held about the musical genre and female gender; the community-based work; the importance of cultural identity centered on the Latinx, more specifically Puerto Rican; and recognition of the LGBTQ+ community in the creative spaces. To navigate these issues, the author …

More Than A Punchline: A Comparative Analysis Of Diversity In Dropout.Tv & Collegehumor, Alexander Gluchowski

Student Research Submissions

This paper examines the evolution of digital comedy through a comparative analysis of CollegeHumor and its offshoot, Dropout.tv, focusing on how each platform has approached the portrayal of diversity and inclusion. Utilizing a qualitative content analysis, the study contrasts selected episodes from both platforms to explore shifts in the representation of queer and POC comedians, and the thematic treatment of identity issues. The findings reveal that Dropout.tv significantly advances the inclusivity of comedic content, moving beyond CollegeHumor’s earlier reliance on stereotypical and controversial humor. This shift not only reflects changes in contemporary comedy but also highlights Dropout.tv's commitment to fostering …

Old Wives’ Tales: Collections From Beneath The Floorboards, Layla Barnes

Student Research Submissions

Old Wives’ Tales: Collections from Beneath the Floorboards draws on the rich tradition of feminist speculative fiction, particularly in the genre of the fairy tale. It responds to Walidah Imarisha’s idea of “visionary fiction,” a kind of fiction which seeks to participate in “the decolonization of the imagination.” Using an experimental fragmentary form, it explores themes of story and counter-story, maternal legacy, female interconnectedness and community, and magic as a form of female empowerment in opposition to patriarchal control and surveillance.

Queerform/Ing, Matthew Solon-Lee Weimer

Art Theses and Dissertations

My artwork is situated within and around vessels and the Queer Homoerotic World and explores sexuality as a Demisexual within them. This is accomplished through the two processes of my creation, Minivague and Queerform/ing: balancing sexual tension and explicit expression, while subverting traditional norms and stereotypes with queerness to distance oneself from stereotypical Gay Art. Altering/emphasizing makes the artwork more romantic, lighter, whimsical, softer, and tender than the figure/s and the situations actually are. The process is also emphasizing what one sees or wants to be seen. The Pink Boy becomes a celebration of intimacy of any form. I discuss …

The Perfect Model: Exploring Gender Differences Within Commercial Graphic Design Preferences, Adeline Roberts

Undergraduate Theses

Personal preferences within graphic design are heavily shaped by social factors, including cultural practices. This project explores the effect of gendered-based experiences on visual design preferences, through investigating men’s and women’s preferences regarding graphic design elements, and the source of these opinions. The data was then used to create two educational images, which mimic contemporary magazine covers, visually illustrating the effects of gendered marketing and experiences on personal design preferences. These images were then attached to an interactive website, so that the findings and pieces from this project can be easily accessed by future audiences.

User Perception Of Gender Studies In Video Games, Quinn T. Gienapp

Honors Thesis

Alongside the increase in video game popularity, a subclass of games was formed that offer very unconventional gaming experiences. These games offer different stories that differ greatly from games made on multi-million-dollar budgets. Many of these types of games exist on the fringes of the industry and portray LGBTQ+ themes through their writing or gameplay. One of these games uses the medium of video games to process their trauma by relaying their own story. The game “He Fucked the Girl Out of Me” is an autobiographical video game that highlights the story of the Author and their experiences with …

Final Master's Portfolio, Ayotunde Afolabi

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio explores themes of gender and race, identity representation, and agency within various literary texts. It encapsulates a series of analytical essays that scrutinize how these themes intersect and manifest across diverse literary landscapes, emphasizing the ways in which authors address and challenge societal norms and structures through their narratives. Each essay within the portfolio not only mirrors the engagement with these themes but also showcases the development of a theoretical approach that bridges classical literary analysis with contemporary issues of identity politics and social justice.

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 …

The Controlled Narrative Of “Jane Roe:” Norma Mccorvey’S Life Beyond The 1973 Trial, Eleanor G. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, 1973, wrote two memoirs twenty years after the Supreme Court trial that surrounded her third pregnancy. These memoirs (I Am Roe, 1994, and Won by Love, 1997), along with the recent documentary AKA Jane Roe (2020), provide an insight into McCorvey’s life and how she was used by politicians and civilians during and after the influential trial. McCorvey lived a complicated life and was constantly being pulled in different directions spiritually, politically, and personally. This thesis shows how McCorvey attempted to re-write the narrative of her life using …

Final Master's Portfolio, Savannah Packman

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio uses Marxist and feminist film theory to analyze various forms of visual media. It analyzes Mark Mylod's film The Menu (2022), Julie Taymor's film Across the Universe (2007), the historic V-J Day Kiss photograph, and popular TikTok videos. This portfolio focuses on the impact of capitalism in the political and economic sphere. It also analyzes images of women throughout history and critiques how these images have been used to formulate the American body politic.

Gentleman Death In Silk And Lace: Death And The Maiden In Vampire Literature And Film, Emily Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains an examination in the psychosocial significance of Hans Baldung Grien’s “Death and the Maiden” art motif, created during the Renaissance period following the Black Death, and its resurgence in the vampire fiction genre of both literature and film. I investigate the motif in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976) as well as their film adaptations by Francis Ford Coppola (1992) and Neil Jordan (1994), respectively. By examining the presence of the motif in art, literature, and film, I found that the common threads across all investigated works were the dominant social …

Animating Gender: Conflicting Narrative And Character Design In Gravity Falls, Laine Marshall

Film and Media Studies (MA) Theses

This thesis analyzes the character designs from the Disney XD animated series Gravity Falls (Alex Hirsch, 2012-2016) through a third-wave feminist lens, arguing that these designs reflect an essentialized perception of gender that is in conflict with the themes of acceptance present in the series’ narrative. The series’ narrative pushes forth the idea that female characters are the moral center of the series and serve as an example to their peers, that they are self-assured and in control, and that men can push past any ignorance to care for the people around them, but this effort is undermined by the …

Victim Or Villain: Female Resilience And Agency In The Face Of Trauma In Chimamanda Adichie’S, Purple Hibiscus (2003) And Tsitsi Dangarembga’S, Nervous Conditions (1988), Adaobi Juliet Chukwuma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As long as disparities persist in the way women are treated as compared to their male counterparts, the issue of gender will continue to call forth literary productions. For this reason, female writers are on a mission to dismantle the stereotypes that keep women confined to societal roles. Grounded in a feminist framework, this study focuses on the gender disparity theme in Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus and Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The aim is to examine how these writers represent the trauma of women living in an African patriarchal system. The traumatic experiences of the female characters in both texts …

Zamrock: Negotiating Masculine Urban Identity In Zambia And Music Success In A Postcolonial World, Emeline Avignon

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis analyzes, through predominately an ethnomusicologist approach and methodology, the lyricism, instrumentation, performance, and album art of the movement of Zamrock in Zambia from 1970 to the mid-1980s. I explore the agency and construction of urban youth masculinity by Zamrock artists in the context of Zambia’s colonial history of the Copperbelt, into its decades after independence. First, I look at the socio-political and economic context of colonized and independent Zambia, and how out of these conditions Zambian rock music was fused and forged. I break down the negotiations and desires of Zamrock artists in their identity construction via their …

Writing, Performance, Resistance: Examining Feminist Ideology And Theory In Theatre Since The Second Wave, Olivia Cross

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to identify and analyze how feminist theatre is informed by theory and activism in its resistance against white, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemony offstage through onstage representation. By identifying three consistent themes of gender & sexuality, race, and trauma and the methods used to effectively convey them to an audience, feminist theatre displays how advocacy takes unique forms to uproot the status quo. Furthermore, this research highlights how theatre is a viable and rich outlet for feminist intellectual history, displaying its versatility as a frame of analysis.

Coming Out Of The Coffin: The History And Present Of Queerness In The Vampire Genre., Bailey Drummond

Honors Projects

This essay delves into the captivating and lasting influence of vampires on popular culture since their creation. The fascination with vampires can be traced back to literary works such as John Polidori's "The Vampyre" and Bram Stoker's classic "Dracula," which have served as foundations for vampire mythology across different media platforms. Despite the evolution of media and cultural contexts, certain themes surrounding vampires have persisted throughout history. Notably, vampires have been portrayed as symbols of sexuality and queerness, reflecting societal fears and desires from past eras to the present day. These themes have been critically analyzed and dissected in various …

Restorative Practices In English Language Arts: My Journey Towards Linguistic Justice, Ariana Skeese

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

In this final portfolio, I examine anti-racist pedagogy in English Language Arts Education.

"There Is Power In Being Out": A Three Article Approach Celebrating The Experiences Of Queer University Leaders, Andrew R. E. Lorenzana

Dissertations

Institutions of higher education were historically built to serve a wealthy, White, straight male student population and the leaders of these institutions still largely reflect these demographics. This project specifically aims to celebrate and amplify the life and career of university administrators who identify within the LGBTQ community. Mainly through the use of a portraiture methodology, this three-article study attempts to examine the ways in which LGBTQ identity and career influence one another.

Worldmaking and narrative will be used as a theoretical frame to help analyze the ways in which the telling of a queer individual’s story makes the world …

"My First Best Love": Women's Writing On College Friendships 1880–1905, Alyssa J. Kayser-Hirsh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, American society encouraged strong bonds between women. As separate sphere ideology took hold, highly-structured female relationships were created and maintained through shared rituals, language, and expectations. The resulting friendships enabled women to build a range of emotional ties with one another. At the same time, an expanding array of gender segregated educational institutions further promoted homosocial networks. Women’s college students built community through their shared experience inhabiting a collective space, forging social circles as well as one-on-one intimate relationships. This thesis examines women’s experiences of friendship within the college setting between 1880 …

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations Of “Peau D’Âne” In Contemporary French And English Texts, Amy M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unnatural Issue: Gendered Adaptations of “Peau d’Âne” in Contemporary French and English Texts explores trans-genre and transmedia adaptations of Charles Perrault’s seventeenth-century fairy tale using feminist and narratological theories to examine gendered aspects of storytelling and the treatment of father-daughter incest and blame in the work of selected French, British, and American creators. Texts are read comparatively, with analyses of the adaptations’ plots, motifs, characterizations, and modifications, both in relation to Perrault and to the other adaptations. This dissertation features prose and poetry texts by female authors—including Christine Angot, Catherine Cusset, and Emma Donoghue—in the first two chapters. Reading these …

Body. Freedom. Choice: Creating Artwork In Post-Roe America, Erin Sedra

MSU Graduate Theses

I knew from a young age that I never wanted children. Whenever I expressed my disinterest in motherhood, I was often met with bewilderment, disapproval, and hostility. The church I was raised in taught me that my value and worth as a woman directly correlated with the power of my birthing hips. This fundamentalist upbringing has significantly shaped my relationship with my femininity, my body, and my artwork. When I feel powerless, turning to my art gives me a sense of control and self-expression. This body of work began as a reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and …

Understanding The Effects Of Hormone Treatments On The Transgender Singer: A Pedagogical Study And Voice Studio Guide, Erin M. Hannon

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Transitioning from one gender to another can be an arduous and emotionally charged experience, accompanied by many physical and mental transformations. The journey of self-discovery and vocal explorations is both unique and deeply personal. Modifications that emerge in an individual's vocal characteristics have a profound influence on their capacity to communicate and express themselves.

Transgender vocal students and professional singers must navigate the delicate balance between their vocal and gender identities while considering the possible risks of Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy. Though these therapies may significantly alter one's appearance and overall well-being, they are also capable of causing notable declines …

Navigating Sexual Consent In Japan, Samara Mizutani Cesar

MSU Graduate Theses

Employing an exploratory sequential research design, including focus groups and an online survey, this thesis explores the factors influencing how Japanese people navigate the gray zones of sexual consent. This study not only addresses gaps in the literature on sexual consent but also provides a preliminary understanding of Japanese individuals’ perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences in ambiguous sexual interactions, which is particularly meaningful given Japan’s recent legal revisions and changing sociocultural landscape. Findings indicated the impact of traditional sexual scripts on consent perceptions, with gender and relationship norms contributing to the dismissal of sexual assaults within specific relationships. It was …

Gendered Submission And The Poetics Of Privacy: Devotional And Domestic Poetry Of The 17th And 20th Centuries, Aoife Keefe

English Honors Theses

The poetry born from the confessional and metaphysical genres together act as a poetic anthology of privacy and submission. This anthology holds poems that powerfully engage with the various gendered experiences of submission and the forfeiture of privacy and agency; while these acts are exalted in their masculine contexts, framed as willful abandons of control that empower the poet spiritually and sexually, in feminine contexts, surrender was never a choice, rather an involuntary and penetrative violation of privacy and bodily autonomy.

Keeping And Challenging Familial Attachments: The Bakla Within Contemporary Mainstream Filipino Film, Abraham James A. Mata

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout Filipino television and film, it is difficult to ignore the almost always apparent bakla. The bakla, often portrayed as either an effeminate gay man or a trans woman, largely appears as a side character in many Filipino films. Many depictions of this queer figure in the past have cast them as merely comedic relief or perverted figures. However, within the past two decades of the 21st century, many Filipino films have been produced with a central bakla character. Through an analysis of five mainstream films from the years of 2013-2023, this project is seeking to answer how mainstream depictions …

Disney Princess Films: Feminist Movements And The Changing Of Gender Roles, Mckinley M. Frees

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.