Arts and Humanities Commons^™

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 …

"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 …

Lay It On The Line: The Life And Music Of Gladys Bentley, Bianki Torres, J.

Doctoral Dissertations

This work is a historical biography of Gladys Bentley and her blues music. She was a cross-dressing entertainer from the Harlem Renaissance and performed popular songs with added, sometimes improvised sexual innuendo. This study considers the performances of her recorded and written material as trans music, meaning, that black music provided a platform to determine racial, gendered, and sexual cultural expressions changing over time, however, always rooted in black vernacular culture. Using showbills, promotional material, studio recordings and short autobiography, this study follows Bentley’s career as “male impersonator” and the effects lesbian/gay (queer) culture had on her blues. Also, I …

Act Up: Storm The Nih, Helena Reichenvater

Student Zines

Details the 1990 NIH Action by AIDS activist group ACT UP.

"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 …

Smith, T. Love, Kassey Kreer

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

T Love Smith is a 46 year old born in Lincoln, ME, who identifies as non-binary and queer. After coming out to their mom at age 19, who had also come out as gay when T was 5, they were met with an unsupportive, negative response. Going through a tough childhood filled with alcohol abuse and no community for T to confide in about their gender/sexual identity, T found themselves in toxic relationships in their early adulthood. Eventually they were able to come to terms with their identity and came out as non-binary. T discussed their time in the military …

Burdin, Johannah, Samantha Rouillard

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Johannah Burdin shares her story as a lesbian/queer woman experiencing southern Maine in the 1990s. Her story touches on topics involving coming out, relationships, a traumatic incident that left her disabled, activism, and much more. She was active in her youth in spreading awareness on the AIDS/HIV crisis, education on safe sex, and spent her evenings at popular Portland gay bars, like Sister’s Bar and Limelight/The Underground. Although she is not much into drinking, she recognized these were some of the few spots queer people could go to make community and relationships. Johannah also shares her story of becoming a …

Spadafore, Sampson, Benjamin Lachapelle

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sampson Spadafore is a 27-year-old queer, transmasculine person who currently lives in Westbrook, Maine. They are originally from Syracuse, New York, and attended Nazareth College in Rochester, New York. They graduated with a degree in musical theater. Spadafore discusses shifts in their gender self-presentation and gender fluidity as well as media erasure of trans men. They then moved to Portland, Maine, to work for Maine Boys to Men and have also worked with Speak About It; Maine Renters United; and Democratic Socialists of America. A political current focus is using social media and art to raise awareness about Palestine. Writing …

Poulin-Burrage, Edward "Teddy", Brendan Mcbrine

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Edward “Teddy” Poulin-Burrage is a biracial queer man who has lived in the Portland area for just about his entire life. Teddy has been deeply involved in the world of activism for more than half his life at this point, including with the Southern Maine Workers Center, Sexual Assault Response Services, Portland Racial Justice Congress, Pride Portland, Equality Maine, and other groups. Teddy has mostly done behind the scenes work for these organizations, usually focusing on coalition-building and forging relationships with other organizers. On top of this, Teddy has been a regular in the local gay bar scene for quite …

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 …

Parker, Heidi, Tegan Bryne

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Heidi Parker is a 47-year-old lesbian, who uses she/her pronouns. Heidi Parker grew up in the South and Seventh-Day Adventist. One of her favorite parts about living in the South and still one of her favorite things today is the mountains. Heidi Parker has moved to a few places around the United States; including New York, Maine, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Morrow Beach. Heidi Parker worked as a PE teacher before getting a higher degree in Sports Management. After getting her degree, she moved to New York and worked at Syracuse and then moved to Maine to work …

The Definition Of A Black Man: The Entanglement Of Race, Sexuality, And Space, Michael Moore

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how Black queer men and transmasculine individuals navigate Black heteronormative and White queer spaces in New Orleans. Over the last few decades, articles, including anthropological and sociological, have focused on the relationship between race, gender performance, sexuality, and emotional expression among men such as Christian (2005), which analyzed how Black queer men expressed their masculinity within queer spaces (Christian 2005). This thesis builds on this literature to explore how societal and cultural pressures of masculinity can hinder Black queer men institutionally, socially, and romantically.

Neal, James, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jim Neal is a 65 year old gay man born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois. Following his parents’ divorce at age 7, he moved with his mother and brother into their grandmother’s home. Neal discusses how, throughout his childhood, he witnessed predatory men in positions of power abusing boys; this served to inform his early perception of homosexuality. Those experiences also presented an internal struggle for Jim Neal between his own identity as a gay man and his perception of adult gay men. As a child, he found support in his family and closest community for his non-traditional gender interests …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life of Lorena Hickok, a remarkable woman whose story has been glossed over throughout history. Hickok was an accomplished journalist and writer, and her life offers a fascinating glimpse into being queer in the early twentieth century. While much has been written about Hickok’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, this thesis aims to go beyond their connection to examine Hickok’s entire life and experiences in greater detail. Through analyzing her work as a writer, as well as her personal correspondence and unpublished autobiography, this thesis illuminates the quiet details of defining moments in history, including the Great …

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.

A Queer History Of Seattle Pacific University: Reconciliation And Recovery In Oral History Management And Special Collection Creation, Rebecca Cavanaugh

Honors Projects

In order to deconstruct the process and product of the two-year long SERVE Grant funded research project, “A History of Queer Student Presence and Activism at Seattle Pacific University: 1990-2019”, I analyze it through the acts of knowledge recovery and reconciliation. As an act of knowledge recovery, this project sought to uncover the unacknowledged history about SPU’s queer community through the use of The Falcon and oral history interviews as primary sources. To properly commit to this act of recovery, the project also created a historical narrative, timeline, Special Collection, and website to preserve these findings and make them available …

Preservando La Playa Del Pueblo, Tasha A. Sandoval

Capstones

After more than 80 years, the only queer beach in New York City, the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis, is in danger. In 2022, the city announced the demolition of the Neponsit Hospital, a long-abandoned structure that shelters the beach from the street, creating a sense of privacy and safety. Can Riis Beach live on as a safe and joyous utopia for queer communities without the presence of the hospital buildings? Some beach-goers are campaigning to ensure that whatever replaces the hospital space centers the queer community and preserves the beach’s queer history, including the legacy of Ms. Colombia, a …

Blanchard, Mike, Micaiah Wert

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Mike Blanchard is a 60 year old gay man from Westbrook Maine. He has struggled as an alcoholic due to repressing his queer identity, but has been sober for 33 years (since 1989). Through addiction recovery he was able to come out as gay in 1992. After years of struggling with alcohol and rough relationships, Mike met his husband at Blackstones in Portland, and describes their relationship as, “nothing I ever chased and everything I could have hoped for.” Mike worked for a long time in the field of recreation, but left after feeling as though he could not be …

Setting Up Shop Down South: Gay Visibility And Identity Formation At A New Orleans Bookstore, Katelyn N. Spencer

LSU Master's Theses

Looking specifically at the South’s first gay bookstore, Faubourg Marigny (FM) Books, this thesis will connect the existence of gay literature and space as impetuses of gay community identity within New Orleans. It will use the political, social, and cultural histories of the 1970s through the 2010s to contextualize the gay bookstore as a microcosm of its time and location. In doing so, it will examine how FM Books’ New Orleans location affected its function and its relationship with its community. It will also analyze how the bookstore fit into the city’s history of social tradition and aversion to flagrant …

Homoerotic Medievalism: Looking At Queer Desire In The Homosocial Relationships Of Chaucer’S “The Knight’S Tale” And Fletcher And Shakespeare’S The Two Noble Kinsmen, Juan P. Espinosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore queer interiority within the heteronormative social constructions of late medieval England. Queer interiority is not an occurrence of modernity, but rather a response to social constructions that date back to the Middle Ages. It is essential to account for queerness in the Middle Ages because authors like Chaucer promote the successive resurfacing of queer characters within heteronormative social constructions. Writing during the queer reign of Richard II, Chaucer constructs the interior identities of Palamon and Arcite as a reflection of the king and the political norms of England. Inspired by Chaucer, authors …

Queer Survival Amidst Hiv/Aids, Covid-19 And Homelessness, Julia Young

Pitzer Senior Theses

The treatment and survival of a society's marginalized peoples reveal the true impacts of a pandemic. An analysis of homeless queer youth during the HIV/AIDS and SARS-CoV-2 crises lays bare the systemic failure of the United States government to provide equitable healthcare.

I compare the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics in queer homeless youth to demonstrate the dangers of disease moralization via a sociocultural analyses of disease stigma and responsibility politics. Utilizing syndemic theory I draw on the synergistic relationship between disease and illness to describe the unique challenges queer homeless youth face. A syndemic framework is applied to address common …

Female Masculinity In The Embodied Beowulf Wetlands: A New, Radical, Ecofeminist Approach, Teresa Pilgrim

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article argues that the embodied characterization of Grendel’s mother offers us an alternative heroic model for women, from the titular hero, Beowulf, around whose heroic life and legacy the Old English poem is structured and more usually celebrated. In doing so, it addresses the problematic legacy of the heroic, masculinist poem and its pedagogical role as a canonical text for English literature and national identity which also informs our cultural attitudes to gender-based violence. This article examines female masculinity in the embodied Beowulf wetlands to recover an alternative, powerful, legacy for feminism. Grounded within previous feminist, queer, ecofeminist, and …

Edwards, Florence, Roukia Houssein, Annie Karim

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

The interview was conducted in a USM classroom Roukia and Annie. Florence is a 40 years old dentist who also served in the military. In this interview, Florence shared their journey in being a queer black woman in the military. Florence was asked about their identity and their story on coming out as their preferred sexuality. In the interview, Florence also talks about being a dentist in the military and also outside of the military. In the interview, Florence puts important people in their life in specific stories. They also touched on their education and difference in living in NY, …

Clough, Travis, Josh Allen, Rachel Shanks

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Travis Clough is a 44 year old trans man who grew up in the small town of Bucksport, Maine. He uses the pronouns he/him/his, and identifies as queer or trans. From a young age, Travis felt different with his gender identity. He attended the University of Maine Farmington in the late 1990’s, and was the only school he applied to because it was “where all the queers went”. Having been into music since the age of 14, he began playing in bands while in college. Him and his band would make the long drive from Farmington to Portland every week …

Williams, Maya, Daisy Pelletier

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

*Included at the end of the interview is an original poem read by Maya.

Maya Williams is a 25-year-old Black, queer, trans, Christian person who grew up in North Carolina. Ey moved to Maine to attend grad school at the University of New England. They worked at Maine Inside Out as an intern while at the University of New England. She has also worked at Equality Maine, and now works at Maine Trans Net. Her Christian faith is important to her, and organizations like ChIME (Chaplaincy Institute of Maine), and interfaith organization that educations and ordains chaplains, and The BTS …

In This Harsh World, We Continue To Draw Breath: Queer Persistence In Shakespeare And Hamlet, Beck O. Adelante

Access*: Interdisciplinary Journal of Student Research and Scholarship

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and most often (mis-)quoted works. The central and titular character has likewise been an endless source of academic and artistic inquiry and exploration since nearly the creation of the work itself. However, this paper argues that a crucial and enlightening piece of the puzzle has, until recently, been left unexplored for the most part, considered a frivolous or non-serious pursuit: Hamlet’s and Hamlet’s queerness. Using historical research and evidence, close readings of the text, and examples of recent productions that have taken this element seriously, this paper argues that to fully understand the …

Queer Spaces, Religious Places: Sharing Risk And Making Kin Within A Queer Church Amidst A Pandemic, Sadie V. Counts

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to explore the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on a queer, Christian congregation of the Metropolitan Community Church in Knoxville, TN and the impacts of the pandemic queer kinship and intimacy within the church setting. The thesis explores the ways in which queer kinship manifests within the church and how those relationships have been disrupted and altered by COVID. It also compares the long-term effects of the AIDS epidemic on the church congregation and they ways in which they may be experiencing COVID in a similar manner. Finally, the project explores the ways that intimacy has …

Shaping A Queer South: The Evolution Of Activism From 1960-2000, A. Kamau Pope

Theses and Dissertations

Queer activism dismantles and challenges normativity in spaces that criminalize, oppress, and perpetuate violence towards queer folks. Using Cathy Cohen’s model of radical queer politics, this thesis examines the South as a place that has been shaped over time by queer activism. Beginning with 1960 and the founding of SNCC sets the tone of how the South is non-normative and queer in the context of the United States, yet still a perpetrator of white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia. With a sole focus on the region of the U.S. South, this paper diverges from the narrative of urban queer movements, and …

Consumerism And Pride: The Fate Of Paris’ Marais “Gayborhood”, Christina M. Csensich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the 1980s the Marais neighborhood in Paris, France, became a haven for queer people, specifically gay, white men, filled with queer-owned and queer-centric businesses. By the year 2020, however, these businesses had been priced out by name-brand international corporations. In the 1990s, French television commercials and programs would not speak the word ‘homosexual,’ even when a character was openly queer. By the 2010s, companies regularly featured queer people and gay pride imagery and slogans in their advertising. The queer community in Paris has a unique relationship with the consumer economy, one that ties aspects of queer identity directly to …