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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Capacious Feminism: Intimacy And Otherness In Mina Loy's Poetry, Elise Ottavino
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 …
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Owning The Body: Bodily Autonomy And Consent In The Works Of Octavia Butler, Korryn Plantenberg
Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects
During the 1980’s the Second Wave feminist movement provided more interest in interdisciplinary movements towards equity in the case of gender. One movement that slowly grew was Womanism, which included the intersection between race and gender. Specifically, the experiences of black women in the United States. Inspired by this movement authors such as Octavia Butler was a black science fiction author who wrote literature focused on black women. Alongside her preoccupation, with race in science fiction, Butler explores the nature of consent and bodily autonomy in utopian and dystopian futures. Within her novels, she uses Womanism to engage with futuristic …
“Too Good To Kill”: Literary Gerontology And Late Style In Margaret Atwood’S Gilead Novels, Serina Item
“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 …
The Postmodern And The Personal In Edna St. Vincent Millay’S Aria Da Capo, Roxanne Rankin
The Postmodern And The Personal In Edna St. Vincent Millay’S Aria Da Capo, Roxanne Rankin
Munn Scholars Awards
Aria Da Capo, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 1919 play, has thus far been largely ignored in literary criticism. This essay, through a historical survey of Millay’s previous critical reception followed by a close reading of Aria Da Capo, attempts to explain and then bridge this gap in academic scholarship. A postmodernist reading of the play will then illustrate why Millay’s work still confounds scholars today and how Aria Da Capo specifically continues to be relevant more than 100 years after it was first produced.
The Feminist Gothic Journeys Of Shirley Jackson, Grace Sanko
The Feminist Gothic Journeys Of Shirley Jackson, Grace Sanko
Senior Theses and Projects
No abstract provided.
Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti
Bodies Of Silence And Space: Victimhood, Complicity, And Resistance In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Sana H. Mufti
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
This thesis examines the complexity of resistance and the conditions of power for women in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Using feminist theory, theories of neoliberalism, and Dominionism, this thesis works to understand the ways in which victimhood and complicity influence resistance in totalitarian regimes. I argue that neoliberal ideologies skew understandings of freedom, agency, and power in a way that ensures individuals, specifically women, remain trapped in the system. Focusing on reproduction, I examine how Gilead controls women’s bodies and reproductive abilities to ensure a future for itself. The Eve-Complex is one way that the state integrates itself …