Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Radical Housewife Activism: Subverting The Toxic Public/Private Binary, Emma Foehringer Merchant

Pomona Senior Theses

Since the 1960s, the modern environmental movement, though generally liberal in nature, has historically excluded a variety of serious and influential groups. This thesis concentrates on the movement of working-class housewives who emerged into popular American consciousness in the seventies and eighties with their increasingly radical campaigns against toxic contamination in their respective communities. These women represent a group who exhibited the convergence of cultural influences where domesticity and environmentalism met in the middle of American society, and the increasing focus on public health in the environmental movement framed the fight undertaken by women who identified as “housewives.” These women, …

The Genre Formerly Known As Punk: A Queer Person Of Color's Perspective On The Scene, Shane M. Zackery

Scripps Senior Theses

This video is a visual representation of the frustrations that I suffered from when I, a queer, gender non-conforming, person of color, went to “pasty normals” (a term defined by Jose Esteban Munoz to describe normative, non-exotic individuals) to get a definition of what Punk meant and where I fit into it. In this video, I personify the Punk music movement. Through my actions, I depart from the grainy, low-quality, amateur aesthetics of the Punk film and music genres and create a new world where the Queer Person of Color defines Punk. In the piece, Punk definitively says, “Don’t try …

From The Inside Out, And Through., Dominique Ovalle

The STEAM Journal

These photographs describe “Science” born of consumerism, hijacked by me, economically disenfranchised, or rather—temporarily embarrassed, artist. I was putzing around Malibu—my old college stomping ground, looking for free food; maybe a sample of some gourmet $5 chocolate, and all I got were these photographs.

Mana & Ea, Dan Taulapapa Mcmullin

The STEAM Journal

This work, Mana and Ea, expresses Polynesian indigenous sovereignty struggles with colonialism and globalism in the Pacific Islands.

"Other Than Dead": Queering Vampires In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Interview With The Vampire, And The Gilda Stories, Megan E. Gianniny

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines three diverse vampire narratives from around the 1990s, arguing that the liminal figure of the vampire, forever in between life and death, is also then well-positioned to queer norms around gender, sexuality, and relationships. This queering, however, manifests differently in each narrative. My analysis looks at each of these three narratives in turn, while also considering how each text’s placement as mainstream or not mainstream affected the manifestation of the vampires’ queering.

Women At Work: Working Girl, Disclosure And The Evolution Of Professional Female Stereotypes, Hayley A. Strickland

Scripps Senior Theses

In this analysis, I examine how stereotypes of working women function in some of the most popular film and television shows made in past thirty years. A study of films such as Working Girl and Disclosure and television shows such Ally McBeal and Sex and the City within a second-wave and postfeminist framework ultimately reveals that Hollywood stereotypes of working women have evolved very little and simply become more creatively disguised.

“Of The Woman First Of All”: Walt Whitman And Women's Literary History, Vivian Delchamps

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis contemplates Walt Whitman's role in the lives of 19th and 20th century women writers and his significance to early American feminism. I consider the ways women inspired him to develop pro-feminist ideas about maternity, womanhood, and female liberation.

Disidentified Masculinities, Jacqueline Hope Freedman

Scripps Senior Theses

My capstone project is a multimedia audio and photography project that creates a conversation about the Millennial Generation’s views of individual identity and masculinity, with the hopes of deconstructing the socially constructed and exclusive notions of masculinity by defining a generation’s common sense.

My piece is inspired by the portraiture of Chad States in Masculinities (2011) as well as Loren Cameron’s work in Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits (1996). The theoretical basis of my project relies heavily on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of common sense as well as José Esteban Muñoz’s disidentification. Common sense refers to an instinctual, uncritical and largely …

“It Made The Ladies Into Ghosts”: The Male Hero's Journey And The Destruction Of The Feminine In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! And Toni Morrison's Song Of Solomon, Catherine Ruth Schetina

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis is a consideration of the intertextual relationship between William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. It considers the objectification and destruction of women and female-coded men in the service of the male protagonist's journey to selfhood, with particular focus on the construction of race, gender, and class performances.

The Development Of Personal Status Law In Jordan & Iraq, Kelsey Cherland

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the historical development of personal status law, which governs a person’s marriage, divorce, and custody rights. It is significant because it is part of a framework that has defined women’s rights for centuries. I will argue that personal status law is a patriarchal framework that has been reinforced over time, leading up to the creation of nation-states in the Middle East. As such, this is the “institution” of personal status that will be traced using historical institutionalism theory. In this thesis I will argue that personal status has undergone a critical juncture, or crucial moment of potential …

The Rainbow Effect: Exploring The Implications Of Queer Representation In Film And Television On Social Change, Maya S. Reddy

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I explore how specific films and television shows use the preexisting structure and mechanics of narrative film in order to create queer characters and stories that defy their otherness and stereotypes, thus creating a profound cinematic experience. Not only does the manipulation of these structures and mechanics heighten the realism and depth of the narrative at hand, it also enhances audience identification by allowing queer viewers to find themselves and straight viewers to understand the “other.” In this manner, the New New Queer Cinema and television have had lasting effects on the modern gay rights movement, changing …

“Am I Sexy Yet?”: Contextualizing The Movement Of Exotic Dance And Its Effects On Female Dancers’ Self-Image And Sexual Expression, Maximanova O. Greenberg

Scripps Senior Theses

“‘Am I Sexy Yet?’: Contextualizing the Movement of Exotic Dance and Its Effects on Female Dancers’ Self-image and Sexual Expression” looks at exotic dancing in three contexts––a pole fitness studio, a strip club, and a college dance concert––and how the movement is experienced by the dancers in each space. It questions how the movement changes meaning for the dancers, audience, and mainstream culture based on the context and location, even with similar content. Specifically, it analyzes how the experiences of the dancers affect their self confidence, sexuality, and sexual expression. Then, it applies Audre Lorde's “Uses of the Erotic” to …

Incongruent Premodern And Modern Beauty Ideals: A Case Study Of South Korea And India's Reconciliation Of Current Beauty Trends With Foundational Religious Ideals, Minger Bropleh

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis is an in-depth analysis of beauty ideals in South Korea and India. These two countries have recently turned to skin lightening and cosmetic surgery in order to achieve their new beauty standards. Not only do these two countries share a propensity for those two trends, but they also have an overwhelming majority of the population that identifies with a specific religion; Hinduism in the case of India and Confucianism in the case of South Korea. However, it is not clear that the current beauty ideal in each country aligns with the beauty ideal set out in the respective …