Digital Commons Network^™

Sex And Self-Optimization: Stancetaking In Postfeminist Media, Stella Clymer

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

"We Are Bad Feminists!": Understanding Genre And Rhetoric In (Post)Feminist Dramedy Television, Cailin Rolph

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Centered on Lena Dunham’s Girls (2012) and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (2016) this thesis examines the use of genre conventions in dramedy to facilitate feminist critiques of postfeminist ideals. In conducting a case study of feminist rhetoric present in the shows Girls and Fleabag, this thesis addresses a gap in genre studies concerning the social and political potency of the dramedy genre. The thesis utilizes rhetorical critique, through generic methods, to identify the specific techniques used by Dunham and Waller-Bridge. Through its analyses, this thesis argues that dramedy can uniquely operate as a work of social action and critique, using …

#Hotgirlsemestersyllabus, Katrina Marie Overby, Gheni Platenburg, Niya Pickett Miller

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Leaning In And Bouncing Back: Neoliberal Feminism And The Work Of Self-Transformation In Ottessa Moshfegh’S My Year Of Rest And Relaxation (2018) And Halle Butler’S The New Me (2019), Isabel Sykes

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article is concerned with the capacity of contemporary fiction to reveal and oppose the ubiquity of work in Western culture. I conduct a comparative literary analysis of two contemporary novels that expose how neoliberal rationality has transformed work into an all-encompassing project, endorsed by a corresponding manifestation of feminism. Rather than challenging gendered labor relations through collective action, this “neoliberal feminism” incites women to turn their critical gaze within and transform themselves into resilient citizens and workers. Its sensibility is disseminated through popular literature, from “chick-lit” to self-help books, via narratives of physical and psychological self-transformation. This article builds …

Sober Women’S Feminist Resistance To Alcohol Marketing And Cultural Representations Of Women’S Drinking Practices, Claire Davey

Journal of International Women's Studies

Alcohol is marketed to women as a glamorous and empowering reward for juggling the demands of work and family life. This essay explores the ways in which women who do not drink reject the feminization of alcohol and drinking practices and frame this rejection within discourses of feminist resistance. This essay draws on data collected as part of a mixed-method ethnographic research project that investigates women’s use of, and participation in, online sobriety communities. Findings suggest that women who lead or utilize online sobriety communities have considerable awareness of the feminized marketing of alcohol, and some express strong ideological opposition …

Leighton-Cory, Jocelyn, Bella Shannon

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jocelyn identifies as a Queer woman but also aligns with the label Gender-Queer. They are 40 years old and currently live in the city of South Portland where they serve as a member on the City Council and also work as a managing director at Space Gallery in downtown Portland. Jocelyn was born in Bangor, Maine, and lived there for a year before moving briefly to South Princeton, Maine, and eventually settling in Princeton, Maine, where they grew up. Jocelyn was raised by their single mother along with their older brother and younger sister. They received their B.A. in Arts …

Capacious Feminism: Intimacy And Otherness In Mina Loy's Poetry, Elise Ottavino

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores Loy’s interest in the “woman’s cause” to interrogate how the poet was recaptured as an early feminist figure by the academy. After Virginia Kouidis “rediscovered” Loy’s work in the 1980s, the poet has been consistently drafted as a central feminist figure despite her lack of commitment to organized feminist movements of her time. This retrospective lens offers a catachrestic view of Loy’s feminism. I use “catachresis” to refer to the slightly inaccurate use of “feminism,” tinted by current perceptions of the term, but also to hint at Loy’s capacious feminine poetics. While the rise of feminist theories …

Public Pedagogy, Autotheory, And Egyptian Female Podcasters, Yasmeen Ebada, Kim Fox

Faculty Journal Articles

This research examines six Egyptian female podcasters whose work sits at the theoretical intersection of public pedagogy and autotheory, loosely defined as a first-person narrative form of feminist expression used to challenge hegemonic discourses as a means of activism. The two theories supplement each other, especially since feminism aims to abolish sexism, and public pedagogy is a means to obtain that result. The researchers adopted American-Canadian cultural critic Henry Giroux’s (2004) theory of public pedagogy because it allows for critical dialogue to address discrimination and push for egalitarian transfiguration. Autotheory was chosen for its relation to the podcasters' life experiences …

Cyberculture And Agency In Salmawy’S Butterfly Wings, Elkheshen’S SabʿAt Ayyām Fil Taḥrīr And Soueif's Cairo: My City, Our Revolution

Journal of the Faculty of Arts (JFA)

Mohamed Salmawy’s novel Butterfly Wings that was published in January 2011 predicted the 25 January Revolution in Egypt. As for Hisham Elkheshen’s novel Sabʿat Ayyām fil Taḥrīr which translates in Arabic to 7 Days in Tahrir, was written after the ousting of Mubarak. Both are political novels that revolve around socio-political conflict and upheavals in Egypt from 2010-2011. The third work, Soueif's revolutionary memoir Cairo: My City, Our Revolution was originally written in English in 2012. In her Memoir, she focuses on the eighteen days of the Egyptian Revolution and her active participation in it together with the participation of …

Witchy Politics: Witches And Witchcraft As Political Tropes From Malleus Malleficarum (1487) To Les Sorcières De La République (2016) And The Mercies (2020), Mallaury Joëlle Marie Gauthier

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

The focus of this thesis are two recent novels featuring witches: Chloé Delaume’s Les Sorcières de la République(The Witches of the Republic, 2016) and Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s The Mercies (2020). The first is a futuristic dystopia set in 2062, during the witch trial of the Sibyl of Cumae. The second is a work of historical fiction based on witch trial records and set in seventeenth-century Finnmark (Norway). Both are feminist novels, and both emphasize the political valence of the witch as a gendered figure. This figure emerged from the misogyny of early modern demonology but acquired its contemporary contours …

On Teaching Diversity And Inclusion, Clara Bradbury-Rance

Feminist Pedagogy

In 2020, I was asked to design a module called “Diversity and Inclusion in Practice” for a new online MA. To design a module around this theme was to reckon with a paradox. Scholars such as Sara Ahmed, working across feminist, queer, and critical race studies, have given us theoretical and methodological frameworks not simply for celebrating “diversity” but for exploring this term itself as a function of power. While the use of terms such as diversity and inclusion may be a strategic necessity for social justice work around higher education’s current agenda, this “language of diversity” (Ahmed 2012: 51) …

Reclaiming Domestic Space; Decolonial Feminism And Women’S Sovereignty In Southeast Asia And Beyond Within The Context Of Artistic Practice, Alia Swastika

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Contemporary art practices have developed expansively over the global stage with the development of big international exhibitions, including those held in museums or biennales and festivals. In the last decade, the global art world has witnessed the contestation of powers among institutions and art practitioners generated by massive movements such as Occupy Movements, Arab Springs, Black Lives Matter, which has shifted the positionalities of artists and arts in the Global South. This shift also encourages discussions on decoloniality in the art system and art history, including how to centralize the issue of gender equality. Southeast Asian women artists have expanded …

“Too Good To Kill”: Literary Gerontology And Late Style In Margaret Atwood’S Gilead Novels, Serina Item

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale, and her 2019 sequel, The Testaments, illuminate the author’s continued interest in the connection between a woman’s age and the notion of her usefulness and complicity within a hegemonically masculine society. Focusing on literary gerontology and the author’s late style, this essay highlights Atwood’s persistent rejection of patriarchal representations of older women in literature. I analyze the ways in which Atwood’s “ustopian” (Atwood’s literary genre invention, combining “dystopia” and “utopia”) novels develop older women characters beyond “old age as motif and metaphor” by removing age and gender as significant barriers to …

Heurodis's Body: Reading "Sir Orfeo" With Three Significant Losses, Grace J. Bromage

The Criterion

No abstract provided.

"Just Don't Frighten The Horses": Discussing Porn And Kink In Fandom Spaces, Hillary Hencely

English MA Theses

My thesis discusses why the banning of sexually explicit content is occurring in fandom spaces, who is trying to ban this content, and why it should matter to people both inside and outside of fandom. This thesis looks at these answers within the framework of feminism and fandom culture. When fanfiction is considered to be literature, it is easy to see why fanfiction matters. This is especially true when the authors of fanfiction are primarily women and are told that their content might be harmful to others through the reasoning that pornography is anti-feminist. I wanted to explore why these …

Path To Utopia, Leila Kincaid

Journal of Conscious Evolution

The way to survive in the Anthropocene and transform the world is to end capitalism. Humanity must stop commodifying everything and reifying its value for consumption for the sake of power and survival. The way to do this is through love. This is an inquiry into methods and processes for confronting and transforming the planetary destruction caused by capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism among other phenomena. This paper challenges the idea that it is unrealistic to believe that love can change the world. It posits that loving is caring and caring is the way humanity will shift consciousness so that capitalism …

Women: Radically Glorified, Oppressed, Or Set Free?, Easton Finger

Senior Honors Theses

A woman’s identity in society has often been debated, starting from the beginning of time. The answer to this identity question has been sought in systems ranging from oppression, slavery, radical feminism, and over-exaltation of power. This thesis suggests that the value of women and their role is not found in those systems but in the knowledge of their Creator. Two questions will be posed, including how women’s identity has been previously defined and can a woman’s identity be found in her Creator God. The history of women in biblical times will be reviewed, as well as how Christ valued …

Bell Hooks And Online Feminism, Hazel T. Biana

Journal of International Women's Studies

Feminist theorist and cultural critic bell hooks was known for calling out modern-day feminists for failing to take into consideration the plight of other non-privileged women. She intricately analyzed how various factors of oppression form a web, which contributes to the complexities of women’s marginalization. The vision of hooks, thus, is a revolutionary type of feminism which is inclusive and for everybody. This means that everyone, all persons of various races or classes, should become enlightened witnesses and be a part of the struggle towards eradicating what she refers to as White Capitalist Supremacist Patriarchy. Such vision, however, seems to …

Encountering Berlant Part 1: Concepts Otherwise, Ben Anderson, Et Al.

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

In Part 1 of ‘Encountering Berlant’, we encounter the promise and provocation of Lauren Berlant's work. In 1000-word contributions, geographers and others stay with what Berlant's thought offers contemporary human geography. They amplify an encounter with their work, demonstrating how a concept, idea, or style disrupts something, opens up a new possibility, or simply invites thinking otherwise. The encounters range across the incredible body of work Berlant left us with, from the ‘national sentimentality’ trilogy through to recent work on negativity. Varying in form and tone, the encounters exemplify and enact the inexhaustible plenitude of Berlant's thought: fantasy, the case, …

Autonomy, Post-Puberty Bacha Posh And Third World Feminism In Selected Afghan Fiction, Asma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the fictional representation of the ways in which Afghan girls attain autonomy in their post-puberty stage through the tradition of bacha posh despite the traditional constraints to switch back to their gender at birth. This analysis of bacha posh characters in Ukmina Manoori’s I Am a Bacha Posh and Zarghuna Kargar’s Bakhtawara’s Story attempts to demonstrate how the bacha posh tradition develops the potential for transgression in Afghan girls, fostering a resistance to traditional gender roles. In doing so, this paper challenges and rebuts Western feminist views regarding Afghan women, who are stereotyped as incapable, voiceless, and …

The Revolution Will Be Memed: Digital Memes As Sites For Hegemonic And Counter-Hegemonic Practices, Kimberly Sisu

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Internet memes have become a part of everyday life as a way to participate in digital and online culture. The study of memes, known as memetics, have analyzed memes in many ways: for their political and social participation, for their multimodal presence, and their influence on online discourse. What has not yet been deeply studied are the ways memes participate in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic practices. This project aims to address this gap by investigating how hegemonic and counter-hegemonic practices show up in memes on feminism, and how those practices uphold or disrupt dominant narratives. Fifteen memes on feminism are analyzed …

On Your Mark, Get Set, Gender, Emilia Vella

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Women in sport is a territory that is seldom included in politics, yet “woman,” as an identity, is one that comes with political meaning. This thesis will be discussing the inadvertent politicality of women in sport, and the legislation, as well as systems that declare the identity as so.

"Having It Both Ways: Containing The Champions Of Feminism In Female-Led Origin And Solo Superhero Films", Jessica Taylor, Laura Glitsos

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In this article, we consider the emerging trend of solo, female-led superhero films, and their repeated location in aesthetically distinct pasts or “closed moments.” This pastness, we contend, serves to distinguish the concerns of the protagonists, which are often read as feminist, as redundant for the contemporary audience. This framing is in keeping with a postfeminist cultural context, wherein feminist values and successes are celebrated, while simultaneously declared irrelevant.

We examine the historical or closed settings in Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Captain Marvel (2019) and Black Widow (2021), and consider how this collective investment in the past …

The Feminization Of Mexico City In The Late Twentieth Century: Polvo De Gallina Negra, Pola Weiss, And Lourdes Grobet, Alexis N. Corral

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis centers on select artworks in public intervention, photography and video as an exploration of female's relationship to Mexico City's social landscape and urban space during the late 1970s into the early 1990s. In three case studies, I explore historical urban planning, gender relations, and the effects of modernization.

Demarginalizing Black Ordained Women’S Voices In The Black Baptist Church: A Phenomenological Study Of Black Women Ministers’ Lived Experiences When Seeking Cleric Leadership Roles, Angela Mosley-Monts

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation sought to understand the living experiences of Black Ordained Women in the Black Baptist Church. The study employs a phenomenological perspective and interviews to gather the voices and lived experiences of ordained Black women ministers who have served in the Black Baptist Church at various times. Womanist Theology and Black Feminism form the theoretical basis of the study. Black ordained women interviewed in this study are currently or formerly associated with the Antioch District Missionary Baptist Association, the Antioch District Congress, and the Regular Arkansas Congress of Christian Education. Although some Black ordained women remain with the Black …

Embodying The Divine Feminine: Doja Cat’S Use Of Vocal Timbre, Text, And Body In Planet Her To Construct A Feminine Soundscape — Annotated Bibliography, Tommy Dainko

Musicology and Ethnomusicology: Student Scholarship

In 2021 Doja Cat released her album Planet Her, an imagination of a planet where there was no bigotry, and everyone could live in peace. The main theme of her album, however, revolves around femininity and the divine feminine. This paper will examine how Doja Cat constructs these concepts through a variety of ways. This paper will use Black feminist work to position Doja Cat’s work as feminist. Through the use of a variety of ‘feminine’ vocal timbres—both hers and from featured artists on her album—Doja Cat creates a feminine soundscape. Doja cat also embraces femininity and embodies the …

Running Up Against A Brick Wall: U.S. Metajournalistic Discourse Of Gender Equality In Newsrooms, Margaretha Geertsema-Sligh, Tim P. Vos

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Drawing on institutional theory, feminist critiques of three popular stances on gendered workplaces, and previous research about women in newsrooms, this study considers the metajournalistic discourse about gender equality in newsrooms through a discourse analysis of more than 500 online articles and blog posts in American journalism industry publications from January 2002 until September 2019. The findings confirm that the status of women journalists remains problematic. Journalists recognize that women remain underrepresented in terms of numbers and face a pay gap, glass ceiling, and various forms of harassment. Solutions are sometimes presented in terms of women’s individual empowerment. Arguments in …

Unapologetically Her: A Nomadic-Intersectional Case Study Analysis On Lizzo And Jillian Michaels, Alexia Berlynn Martinez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

With various iterations of the meaning and representation of a feminist woman, feuds arise, especially amongst public figures who capture the media’s attention. This paper analyzes the discourse amongst two communities with opposing views about feminist representations: the body-positive community and the fitness community. Utilizing an intersectional theoretical framework allows us to understand the levels of oppression and marginalization members of the body-positive community, specifically plus-size Black women, endure while also running up against the fitness community. There is no better illustration of this phenomenon than the public skirmish between Lizzo and Jillian Michaels. The goal of this case study …

Coats Of Fire: Rhetorical Identity Negotiations Of Feminist Evangelical Christians, Karly L. Poyner

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

This paper examines the identity negotiations of undergraduate students who identify as both feminist and evangelical Christian. Studies of the negotiation of religious identities and social identities have primarily focused on contexts such as sexuality/religion, context/location, and culture/religion. This study, however, focuses on young adults attending private, religious universities while openly identifying as religious and feminist. By pinpointing Christian universities, this study uncovers an additional layer of tension, since these schools “arguably exert a stronger influence over their students than churches, religious denominations, or parachurch ministries” (Gardner, 2017, p. 33). From 14 interviews with feminist Christian students using Ting-Toomey’s INT …

"Abayomi, We Are The Revolution": Women's Rights And Samba At Rio De Janeiro, Paula Dürks Cassol

Journal of International Women's Studies

The advent of the feminist movement in the twentieth century made it possible for socially organized women to begin seeking for the recognition of their rights and the change of gender roles which were socially built. Women’s rights started to be recognized as a human right. However, criteria of race and class have always been relevant, and have provided privileged positions for white women in the pursuit and attainment of rights, while black women continue to be stigmatized, remaining in the base of the social pyramid. In this regard, this paper questions: What is the relation between feminism and the …