Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Gender In The Footnotes, Kelsey J. Utne

Faculty Publications - History & Political Science

This teaching resource asks students to explore the relationship between unconscious bias and citational mechanics through a critical feminist lens.[i] In the mini-lesson, students create, compare, and discuss citations for a text with ambiguous authorship. The exercise is suitable for any undergraduate classroom in which the instructor aims for students to bring more nuanced intentionality to their citational practices. I have designed the lesson to comply with any academic citation style(s) so that it can be easily adapted either to courses focused on writing within a specific discipline, or to courses with an interdisciplinary writing component.

From Handmaids To Princesses: How Identity And Politics Impact Definitions Of Biblical Rape, Gabrielle R. Isaac-Herzog

Classical Mediterranean and Middle East Honors Projects

The politics of sex in the Bible are complex. They are impacted and limited by the time of the stories, as well as the political landscape and laws of the region. However, since many modern religions have emerged from the text of the Hebrew Bible, it is important for scholars to continue the work of critically examining the texts in the contemporary context. This paper offers a textual analysis of several biblical stories through a feminist and decolonial lens. Through the generation of a taxonomy by which these stories can be categorized, this paper posits that the biblical definitions of …

Tracing Moravian Manufacture, Material Objects And Religious Mission: Transatlantic Textile Journeys, Katherine Faull

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Virago Paradigm Of Female Sanctity: Constructing The Masculine Woman In Medieval Christianity, Angela Bolen

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Latin word virago, in its simplest definition, means “a man-like, warrior woman.” For Christian men and women in the Patristic era and the central Middle Ages, the virago represented a woman who denied all biological characteristics of her womanhood, fiercely protected her virginity, and fully embodied the virtues of Christian masculinity. The virago paradigm of female sanctity, a creation of male writers, reconciled a pervasive fear of the female sex with an obvious admiration for holy women. Additionally, the virago model maintained the supremacy of masculine virtues, upheld a patriarchal hierarchy, and created a metaphorical space that validated …

Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier

Student Publications

The Reichsfrauenführerin, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, led the National Socialist Women’s League from 1934 until she went into hiding in 1945. During her career in the Nazi Party, she created a female focused sector of the party that promoted pronatalist propaganda, discouraged women from engaging in politics, and urged women to only perform gender-suitable work. In contradiction to her message, Scholtz-Klink was the highest-ranking female political figure and a divorcee, who regularly chose her political career with the Nazi Party over her duties in the private sphere. Although she had little to no political power in the inner circle because of her …

"Festmachen": Männliche Zauberpraktiken Als Präventivmedicin, B. Ann Tlusty

Faculty Contributions to Books

This essay is part of a larger project examining martial magic – that is, masculine spells aimed at enlisting supernatural powers to become better fighters – as it was practiced by men in Germany between about 1500 and 1900. Here the focus is specifically on men who attempted to make themselves invulnerable using martial spells and blessings. Like many early modern magical practices, martial magic had religious overtones and often involved the abuse of sacred objects; at the same time, it drew heavily on ideas from the field of medicine.

Dorothy R. Crockett Classroom Dedication September 10, 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law, Lorraine Lalli, Bre'anna Metts-Nixon, Michael M. Bowden

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Law School News: Rwu Law Will Dedicate Classroom To Ri's First African-American Woman Lawyer 9-4-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Notions Of The "Closet" And The "Secret" In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Jessica Maria Oliveira

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the notions of the “closet” and “secret” within Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as offer a clear and precise definition of queer theory to assist in elucidating many of the concepts being discussed. Close reading techniques will be utilized to further uncover the metaphoric, symbolic, and otherwise figurative importance of certain aspects of The Picture of Dorian Gray and supporting texts. Through Judith Butler’s conceptualization of sex and gender, as well as Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the “secret”, this paper will explicate the intricacies of Wilde’s work and unveil queered aspects …

Cuckoldry And The “Gone For A Soldier” Narrative: Infidelity And Performance Among Eighteenth-Century English Plebeians, Elias Hubbard

Lawrence University Honors Projects

This project addresses existing historical arguments about the role of performance in eighteenth-century English plebeian infidelity cases, identifying some of the cultural scripts available to married men and women from popular texts in order to better understand cases of infidelity in contemporary plebeian marriages. The thesis seeks to clarify the effect of infidelity on a plebeian individual’s social standing and relationships, and to draw conclusions about the nature of plebeian infidelity, marriage, and gender in England through the long eighteenth century.

While examining contemporary public texts of cuckoldry, I address how homosocial behavior appears in narratives of cuckoldry, how the …

Women In The Gambia, Cymone Fourshey

Faculty Contributions to Books

A predominantly rural territory with few urban centers historically, the Gambia holds little in the way of well-known luxury resources commonly discussed in studies of western Africa. People of the region, in particular women, have exploited both riverine and oceanic food and material resources. The limited scholarship available on Gambian women reveals they have been essential to those endeavors contributing to economy, politics, society, and family institutions. Often by pursuing seemingly less-lucrative endeavors, women have been prominent actors innovating production and acquisition techniques as well as product uses in this mixed agricultural and aquatic economy, from precolonial to contemporary times. …

From Heo To Zir: A History Of Gender Expression In The English Language, Brodie Robinson

Senior Honors Theses

With the growing presence of the LGBTQ+ community on the global stage, the matter of gender has been rushed to the forefront of the public consciousness. News outlets have hotly debated the topic of gender expression, a topic which has motivated mass demonstrations and acts of violence, and this has promoted a linguistic conversation at the international level.

This thesis is intended to provide the historical context for the contemporary debate on gender expression in the English language, and explores both the grammatical background (the Indo-European origins of linguistic gender, the development of the modern pronoun system, etc.) and the …

Why Wikipedia Often Overlooks Stories Of Women In History, Lara Nicosia, Tamar Carroll

Articles

Wikipedia's reliance on a volunteer editing base has resulted in a gender bias both in the quantity and quality of content around women. With less than 20% of Wikipedia's editors identifying as women, only 30% of biographical entries have been written about women and entries on women tend to be shorter and more focused on relationships and family roles than entries on men. This article explores the causes of Wikipedia's gender bias and offers ways that both individuals and institutions can help improve Wikipedia's content around women.

Findings Of An Effect Of Gender, But Not Handedness, On Self-Reported Motion Sickness Propensity, Ruth E. Propper, Frederick Bonato, Leanna Ward, Kenneth Sumner

Department of Psychology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Discrepant input from vestibular and visual systems may be involved in motion sickness; individual differences in the organization of these systems may, therefore, give rise to individual differences in propensity to motion sickness. Non-right-handedness has been associated with altered cortical lateralization of vestibular function, such that non-right-handedness is associated with left hemisphere, and right-handedness with right hemisphere, lateralized, vestibular system. Interestingly, magnocellular visual processing, responsible for motion detection and ostensibly involved in motion sickness, has been shown to be decreased in non-right-handers. It is not known if the anomalous organization of the vestibular or magnocellular systems in non-right-handers might alter …

Feminist Futures And Campus Changes: Dismantling Ursinus College's Greek Life, Jordan Ostrum

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Marriage And Gender: A History Through Letters, Victoria Kern

Senior Honors Projects

Research on the evolution of marriage can be found quite easily, but the opportunity to see into the lives of married couples from the past is rare. Through the analysis of letters between my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I provide a glimpse of what being married has meant throughout the 20^th Century for heterosexual couples. Societal ideas about what makes a marriage ideal have changed over time, but they have always been closely linked with gender expectations (Berk, 2013), so a feminist approach to the analysis of the evolution of marriage is used with my family’s letters as a …

A Changing Force: The American Civil War, Women, And Victorian Culture, Megan E. Mcnish

Student Publications

The American Civil War thrust Victorian society into a maelstrom. The war disrupted a culture that was based on polite behavior and repression of desires. The emphasis on fulfilling duties sent hundreds of thousands of men into the ranks of Union and Confederate armies. Without the patriarchs of their families, women took up previously unexplored roles for the majority of their sex. In both the North and the South, females were compelled to do physical labor in the fields, runs shops, and manage slaves, all jobs which previously would have been occupied almost exclusively by men. These shifts in society, …

I, The Queen: Power And Gender In The Reign Of Isabel I Of Castile, Sarah E. Hayes

Student Publications

The role of women in society, in particular, women in leadership positions, constantly is debated. However, this discussion extends far back in history. As one of the most memorable rulers of Early Modern Europe, the life and reign of Queen Isabella of Spain, more accurately known as Queen Isabel I of Castile and León, can provide answers. Scholars have long grappled with the degree to which Isabel embodied or transcended the gender norms of her time as well as whether she ruled more through the joint monarchy with her husband King Fernando of Aragón or as a sovereign in her …

The Military-Masculinity Complex: Hegemonic Masculinity And The United States Armed Forces, 1940-1963, Brandon T. Locke

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The military-industrial complex grew rapidly in the build up to the Second World War and continued to expand in the decades that followed. The military was not only much larger, but had also changed their relationship with American citizens, impacting their lives in new and complex ways. The defensive needs of World War Two and the Cold War made the military an imperative and prestigious institution in the United States, and the Selective Service Draft, beginning in 1940 and running continuously until 1973, gave the military unfettered access to the young men of the nation.

During the same time, government …

Atlantic Threads: Singer In Spain And Mexico, 1860-1940, Paula A. De La Cruz-Fernández

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of Singer in the modernization of sewing practices in Spain and Mexico from 1860 to 1940. Singer marketing was founded on gendered views of women’s work and gendered perceptions of the home. These connected with sewing practices in Spain and Mexico, where home sewing remained economically and culturally important throughout the 1940s. "Atlantic Threads" is the first study of the US-owned multinational in the Hispanic World. I demonstrate that sewing practices, and especially practices related to home sewing that have been considered part of the private sphere and therefore not an important historical matter, contributed …

Writing Words, Wearing Wounds: Race And Gender In A Puerto Rican Neo-Slave Narrative, Radost A. Rangelova

Spanish Faculty Publications

This article analyzes Mayra Santos-Febres's novel "Fe en disfraz" as a modern subversive slave narrative that inverts racial and gender hierarchies and critiques contemporary Caribbean white male privilege. The analysis answers the following questions: How does the novel represent the racialized and sexualized female body? How does the novel's representation of racial and gender relations address the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade in the Caribbean? And ultimately, what does the novel suggest about (re-) writing the personal and the collective history of slavery?

"Spectacular Opacities": The Hyers Sisters' Performances Of Respectability And Resistance, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

This essay analyzes the Hyers Sisters, a Reconstruction-era African American sister act, and their radical efforts to transcend social limits of gender, class, and race in their early concert careers and three major productions, Out of Bondage and Peculiar Sam, or The Underground Railroad, two slavery-to-freedom epics, and Urlina, the African Princess, the first known African American play set in Africa. At a time when serious, realistic roles and romantic plotlines featuring black actors were nearly nonexistent due to the country’s appetite for stereotypical caricatures, the Hyers Sisters used gender passing to perform opposite one another as heterosexual lovers in …

Christine Jorgensen And The Media: Identity Politics In The Early 1950s Press, Emylia N. Terry

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

“Christine Jorgensen and the Media: Identity Politics in the Early 1950s Press” analyzes America’s first transgender celebrity and the interpretations of her identity by a seemingly celebratory press. Jorgensen, who rose to fame in December 1952, was propelled to stardom partly because of the cultural climate of the 1950s. The first portion of my essay begins by setting the historical context of how gender nonconforming individuals were treated in the press before Jorgensen, and then analyzes Jorgensen’s personal characteristics that also helped make her a media fixture. However, the veracity of Jorgensen’s female identity was doubted by the time she …

Elizabeth Cady Stanton And The Notion Of A Legal Class Of Gender, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In the mid-nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used narratives of women and their involvement with the law of domestic relations to collectivize women. This recognition of a gender class was the first step towards women’s transformation of the law. Stanton’s stories of working-class women, immigrants, Mormon polygamist wives, and privileged white women revealed common realities among women in an effort to form a collective conscious. The parable-like stories were designed to inspire a collective consciousness among women, one capable of arousing them to social and political action. For to Stanton’s consternation, women showed a lack of appreciation of their own …

Law, History, And Feminism, Tracy A. Thomas

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This is the introduction to the book, Feminist Legal History. This edited collection offers new visions of American legal history that reveal women’s engagement with the law over the past two centuries. It integrates the stories of women into the dominant history of the law in what has been called “engendering legal history,” (Batlan 2005) and then seeks to reconstruct the assumed contours of history. The introduction provides the context necessary to appreciate the diverse essays in the book. It starts with an overview of the existing state of women’s legal history, tracing the core events over the past two …

Male Same-Sex Relations In Modern China: Language, Media Representation, And Law, 1900–1949, Wenqing Kang

History Faculty Publications

The article discusses the tension in the Chinese indigenous terminology for male same-sex relations which was similar to Eve Sedgwich's description of the Western modern homosexual/heterosexual definition. It argues that the Western sexological concept of homosexuality was accepted in the early 20th century China and notes that its legal apparatus had no clear stipulations on sex between men. It indicates how writers during the first half of the 20th century were more concerned with the proper gender behavior and the image of the nation than sex itself.

Failed Men: The Postwar Crisis Of Masculinity In France 1918-1930, Brandon Moblo

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Masculinity has been viewed by scholars as a concept which was concerned with becoming as opposed to being. One could not achieve the state of being a man and become complacent. One needed to continuously prove one’s masculinity to oneself, other men, and women.

With its emphasis on the core values of masculinity such as strength, duty and above all, courage, the First World War was seen in France as the ultimate test of manhood. However, confronted with the horrors of modern industrial warfare, men were put into a situation where they were bound to fail that test. This led …

Teaching In A Gendered World, Karen Sotiropoulos, Ian Christopher Fletcher

History Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.