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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Place Me In Gettysburg: Relating Sexuality To Environment, Kylie R. Mandeville Apr 2021

Place Me In Gettysburg: Relating Sexuality To Environment, Kylie R. Mandeville

Student Publications

This project links sexuality and environmental issues in the context of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It considers how I, a queer student at Gettysburg College, can be in “right relations” with this environment. While queer ecological scholarship defines “right relations” as relationships where all beings—people of all identities, as well as animals, plants, and the land—can flourish through their interactions, I inquire whether such flourishing is possible for me, and others like me, here in this place. To answer this question, the project links queer ecological scholarship with environmental history scholarship specific to the Gettysburg battlefield and civil war. It also involves …


"We Can Be Our Best Alliance": Resilient Health Information Practices Of Lgbtqia+ Individuals As A Buffering Response To Minority Stress, Valerie Lookingbill, A. Nick Vera, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa L. Kitzie Mar 2021

"We Can Be Our Best Alliance": Resilient Health Information Practices Of Lgbtqia+ Individuals As A Buffering Response To Minority Stress, Valerie Lookingbill, A. Nick Vera, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa L. Kitzie

Student Publications

This article examines the resilient health information practices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) individuals as agentic forms of buffering against minority stressors. Informed by semi- structured interviews with 30 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina, our findings demonstrate how LGBTQIA+ individuals engage in resilient health information practices and community-based resilience. Further, our findings suggest that LGBTQIA+ communities integrate externally produced stressors. These findings have implications for future research on minority stress and resiliency strategies, such as shifting from outreach to engagement and leveraging what communities are doing, rather than assuming they are lacking. Further, as …


“When It’S Time To Come Together, We Come Together”: Reconceptualizing Theories Of Self-Efficacy For Health Information Practices Within Lgbtqia+ Communities, Alexander N. Vera, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa L. Kitzie Nov 2020

“When It’S Time To Come Together, We Come Together”: Reconceptualizing Theories Of Self-Efficacy For Health Information Practices Within Lgbtqia+ Communities, Alexander N. Vera, Travis L. Wagner, Vanessa L. Kitzie

Student Publications

This chapter addresses the shortcomings of current self-efficacy models describing the health information practices of LGBTQIA+ communities. Informed by semi-structured interviews with 30 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from South Carolina, findings demonstrate how their self-efficacy operates beyond HIV/AIDS research while complicating traditional models that isolate an individual’s health information practices from their abundant communal experiences. Findings also suggest that participants engage with health information and resources in ways deemed unhealthy or harmful by healthcare providers. However, such practices are nuanced, and participants carefully navigate them, balancing concerns for community safety and well-being over traditional engagements with healthcare infrastructures. These findings have …


The Myth Of Neutrality: Linguistic Influence In The Integration Of Nonbinary Identities In English And German, Zoe A. Philippou Apr 2020

The Myth Of Neutrality: Linguistic Influence In The Integration Of Nonbinary Identities In English And German, Zoe A. Philippou

Student Publications

Grammatical structures that differ among languages can affect the way people of different cultures think, speak, and behave. Because of its close ties with identity, language also has the ability to manipulate the way people view themselves and others. Ethnographic research among English and German speakers shows that these differing grammatical structures affect the integration into society of nonbinary, intersex, and agender individuals through a grammatical predisposition for gender neutral language. As such, the means of increasing social integration of these groups also differs between linguistic and cultural borders.


The Contemporary Porn Debate - Perceptions Of Sexual Health Of Porn Actors, The 2013 Hiv Crisis, And Recognizing The Complexities Of The Porn Industry, Nasreen C. Gooya Apr 2020

The Contemporary Porn Debate - Perceptions Of Sexual Health Of Porn Actors, The 2013 Hiv Crisis, And Recognizing The Complexities Of The Porn Industry, Nasreen C. Gooya

Student Publications

Between August 2012 and January 2013, four adult film performers based in California tested positive for HIV which triggered a moratorium on production, and led the state of California to mandate condom usage in the industry under the Safer Sex in the Adult Industry Act – otherwise referred to as Measure B. The goal of this research is to explore how the discourse surrounding health in the adult film industry, specifically sexual health in relation to the adult film performers during this event, is reflective of contemporary anti-pornography sentiments. These sentiments and biases ultimately lead to regulations of the industry …


Invisible Intersex: How Discourse Serves To Perpetuate Violence, Zoe A. Philippou Apr 2019

Invisible Intersex: How Discourse Serves To Perpetuate Violence, Zoe A. Philippou

Student Publications

Critical discourse analysis surrounding intersex individuals makes it is clear that the violence against intersex individuals stems from a sense of othering due to the silence surrounding the public discussion and representation of intersex individuals. Additionally, the current discourse serves to create a circular argument of blame instead of serving to decrease the violence done upon intersex individuals. This research serves to explore the discourse surrounding intersex individuals and propose social and institutional ways of working to end the stigma surrounding intersexuality.


Ici-Bas!, Nicholas A. Koloian Oct 2018

Ici-Bas!, Nicholas A. Koloian

Student Publications

High school student Moses King isn't a goody two-shoes, but the bully Samuel doesn't understand (or care) about this fact. In this story written by Nicholas Koloian, Moses finds his retribution through his bold friend, Henry, who must overcome his own problems in a tale exploring race, sexuality, and high school bullying.


Reeling Backward: The Haptics Of A Medium And The Queerness Of Obsolescence, Travis L. Wagner Jan 2018

Reeling Backward: The Haptics Of A Medium And The Queerness Of Obsolescence, Travis L. Wagner

Student Publications

This article considers the haptics of queer activist footage shot on video, and more specifically footage shot on magnetic media. Despite ideal methods of care, magnetic media faces extreme concern from a preservation standpoint. As a format that is both subject to rampant deterioration (known colloquially as “sticky shed”) and obsolescence (with the ceasing VCR production), the queer activist videotape is an archival artefact irretrievably stuck in a liminal space. To play a tape is to contribute to its destruction, yet to not play the tape is to overlook potentially unique moments in queer history. As such, this article explores …


Two-Spirit Indigenous Americans: Fact Not Fiction, Casey S. O'Higgins Oct 2015

Two-Spirit Indigenous Americans: Fact Not Fiction, Casey S. O'Higgins

Student Publications

This paper examines the narratives of Two-Spirit Indigenous Americans who have been oppressed by heteropatriarchal norms of colonization. Two-spirit creation stories are explored to show the prevalence and importance of their identities prior to contact with Euro-American settlers and the evolution of violence, exclusion, and marginalization due to colonization.The term "Two-Spirit" is examined as a cultural identity of the Indigenous Americans. Finally, the paper looks at how Two-Spirit scholars are looking to combine Queer Theory with Indigenous Studies to deconstruct colonial heteropatriarchal America.


The Semantics Of Repression: Understanding The Continued Brutality Towards Lgbtqa Individuals In The Russian Federation, Joseph C. Recupero Apr 2015

The Semantics Of Repression: Understanding The Continued Brutality Towards Lgbtqa Individuals In The Russian Federation, Joseph C. Recupero

Student Publications

This work serves to examine the linguistic style and choices used by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin as it pertains to issues of the LGBTQA community in the country and the Anti-Propaganda Law. Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis, the author compares the speeches of Vladimir Putin to those of Western leaders Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon, drawing conclusions as to why brutality towards LGBTQA individuals in Russia has been allowed to continue relatively unopposed. The author suggests that it may be Vladimir Putin's careful choice in words and speaking styles that allows the issue to persist.