Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Otherworldly Ethics: Trouthe And The Fairy Mistress In The Lays Of Lanval, Graelent, Guingamor And Sir Launfal, Abigail Roberts

Honors College

While the nature of fictional fairies in medieval romance has been widely discussed and it has been acknowledged by many scholars that fairies typically offer some critique of the human courts in which they intervene, they have yet to be examined in relation to their ethical impact and conceptions of justice. In order to address this, this thesis performs a close reading of four Breton lays, Lanval, Graelent, Guingamor and Sir Launfal using a framework of medieval folklaw. The four fairies of these lays introduce to their respective poems a unique feminine ethic that critiques the enactment of trouthe practiced …

Fogler Library: Women In Science, Heather Perrone

UMaine Video

This video slideshow explores the history of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. To celebrate Women's History Month, we are highlighting important and often forgotten women who have contributed to STEM throughout the decades. Here you will find information regarding important female scientists and researchers at the University of Maine including Kathryn E. Briwa, Katherine Musgrave, Edith Patch, and Beryl Warner Williams.

What Women Bring To The Fight: An Analysis Of Female Leadership In U.S. National Security, Alison Tobey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women have held some of the highest-ranking national security positions in the United States, though the overall number of women in leadership positions has remained relatively small until recently. The Biden Administration has achieved gender parity in their national security leadership positions, with over fifty percent of these positions being held by women. Since this is the first time in U.S. history that women have such a significant presence in the defense field, it is important to analyze and understand the changes that can come as a result.

The purpose of this research is to broadly understand the impact that …

Sisterhood And Survival: An Exploration Of Women's Relationships In Feminist Speculative Fiction, Madeleine Gernhard

Honors College

Writers have used the genre of feminist speculative fiction as a lens through which to view modern issues which effect women. Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Margaret Atwood’ Handmaid’s Tale, and Naomi Alderman’s The Power each explore dystopian or transitory dystopian societies in which women are pitted against one another for the sake of their survival. In reviewing the relationships which the women in these novels have to each other we stand to gain insights into the ways in which sisterhood influences change in these societies. Each of these works, while centering around different understandings of dystopian society, also prominently feature the …

Making Earth, Making Home: Technoscientific Citizenship And Ecological Domesticity In An Age Of Limits, Emma Schroeder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the post-WWII era, concerns over Earth’s finite resources and technology’s destructive capacity shaped ideas of a global environment. This dissertation focuses on transnational grassroots social movements that attempted to find solutions to earthly vulnerability. It looks at women’s nuclear disarmament campaigns in the early 1960s, the Appropriate Technology movement of the 1970s, Canada’s conserver society program, and the emergence of feminist technoscientific critique and ecological activism in the early 1980s. In each case study, it shows how the ability to critique and produce technoscientific knowledge expanded women’s political identities, what I call technoscientific citizenship. Simultaneously, these groups promoted ecological …

Creating Places-Of-Memory: Photographs, Identity, & Matrilineality, Aylah Ireland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My artistic practice and family genealogy create the opportunity for a change in the perception of family history. I seek to illuminate and reframe family history and definitions of self while exploring an alternative to, or an addendum to, the patrilineal model of genealogy. Using the photographs and information gathered from my matrilineal bloodline and my preconceived definitions of self, I have created artworks that are places-of-memory. The places-of-memory, sometimes locations, sometimes objects, or sometimes the interaction with objects in an environment, provide an opportunity for discussion regarding the omitted or dismissed nature of the matrilineal line. This paper outlines …

“Putting Out Fires”: An Original Situational Comedy Pilot Episode Examining Modern Motherhood, Keely Gonyea

Honors College

Even in an age of easily accessible and ever-changing digital content, television remains one of the most influential modes of media. Shows, on television and on streaming services, play key roles in informing their audiences of societal conventions. Situational comedies are an easily identifiable genre on television and their popularity has not wavered as seen by their steadfast presence during primetime viewing slots. This thesis explores and analyzes how situational comedies have created spaces for potentially harmful stereotypes for their female characters, specifically mothers. The creative work of this thesis offers an original situational comedy pilot episode that looks to …

Female Political Campaigns: Just The Right Amount Of Femininity, Harley Rogers

Honors College

This paper seeks to understand how female politicians develop their public identities to meet and reject the gender stereotypes society holds of women. The case study looks at Margaret Chase Smith’s political career, with a special focus on her 1964 presidential campaign. The research analyzed Smith’s career through the newspaper coverage of her in order to understand Smith’s choices surrounding her public identity and the media’s response. The analysis identified four distinct points of interest that contributed to Smith’s public persona: physical appearance, examples of housewifery, dialogue on women’s issues, and legislative accomplishments. These factors demonstrate how Smith presented her …

Franco-American Women's Suffrage Movement And Legislators, Rhea Côté Robbins

Franco-American Centre Franco-Américain Occasional Papers and Lectures

Beginning with info on the Canadian suffrage over the years...property-owning women having the vote, losing it, comparison/contrast in regard to what Camille Lessard Bissonnette was doing, she was an early adopter, 1910-1911...compared to the QC/Canadian women's movement which began in 1912...the usual barriers against suffrage and how Camille was not on the radar for the Maine women's suffrage at the time, early 1900s...why I wanted her in the exhibit at the Maine State Muse, this time around ...and then examining the women of Maine who have served in the Maine State Legislature, 33 found, thus far, serving since 1935!...and some …

Dawnbreaker Vol 65 No 1 (Fall 2018), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Behind Closed Doors: Unpacking College Students’ Complex Relationships With Pornography Consumption, Samantha K. Saucier

Honors College

This thesis is a quantitative and qualitative study of University of Maine students attitudes and consumption habits of pornography. It contains a literature review of anti-pornography feminism from the Second Wave, as well as an overview of sex-positive and sex-critical theories of pornography from more recent years. The goal of the thesis is to understand how sex-negative and/or sex-positive ideas have or have not permeated college student’s understanding of pornography. Over 800 students were surveyed about pornography consumption through the Psychology Department’s Fall prescreen. 4 students from the survey, who all happened to be women, were interviewed about their relationships …

Dawnbreaker Vol 64 No 3 (Spring 2018), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Tangled Up: Women’S Experiences In Mathematics, Lori Loftin

Honors College

This thesis is a bridge between two disciplines: Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Mathematics. The first portion of the work synthesizes both theory and previously done studies to describe the state of women in mathematics as a whole, as well as historicizing the role of women in mathematics. Obstacles to the full and equal participation of women in mathematics are examined through a feminist lens. The second part of the thesis is a feminist biography crafted from an interview with a professor of mathematics, Dr. Erica Flapan. This provides information about her personal experiences as a woman in mathematics …

Maine Women's Giving Tree Quarterly Review Vol. 2, No. 1 (June 2017), Maine Women's Lobby Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

The Lipstick Project, The University Of Maine Honors College

Cultural Affairs Distinguished Lecture Series

Leigh Boyle will share her story of The Lipstick Project, which grew out of her 2010 volunteer work in a women's hospital in Northern Ethiopia. The hospital cares for women with obstetric fistula, a condition resulting from prolonged, obstructed labor that leaves women chronically incontinent and ostracized. Leigh began giving weekly manicures to the isolated women, an act that proved life-giving for all. Upon returning home to Vancouver, Leigh saw similar need for restorative work in modern healthcare and established The Lipstick Project, a woman run volunteer organization that provides free, professional spa treatments to people in hospice and hospitals …

Dawnbreaker Vol 63 No 3 (Spring 2017), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Being & Not Being Franco-American: The Perspective Of One 21st Century Millennial, Maegan Maheau

Franco-American Centre Franco-Américain Undergraduate Scholarship

I am attempting to share a collective analysis of self-explored thoughts as to where and why I have certain viewpoints or biases on whether “this” or “that” might account for my understanding of what a Franco-American is. The question of being and not being a Franco American is a collection of observations and inductions, both through my socially crafted subjective lens and by relating such matters beyond personal experience.

Maine Women's Giving Tree Quarterly Review Vol. 1 No. 1 (2016), Maine Women's Lobby Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 63 No 2 (Winter 2016-2017), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 63 No 1 (Fall 2016), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 63 No 3-Amended (Spring 2016), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 63 No 3 (Spring 2016), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 62 No 1 (Fall 2015), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Informed Consent, Abortion, And Reproductive Autonomy, Heather Dawn Lakey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abortion is an inimitable experience that poses a host of unique ethical and philosophical questions not generated by other medical procedures. In spite of a massive amount of literature discussing abortion, there is little theoretical work examining the relationship between abortion and informed consent. This is a problematic oversight because informed consent plays a prominent role in contemporary abortion practices. In an effort to address this lacuna, my dissertation explores the concept of informed consent as it functions within abortion discourse.

Informed consent and abortion are both interdisciplinary terms and thus a robust critique of their intersection requires an interdisciplinary …

Dawnbreaker Vol 61 No 3 (Spring 2015), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 61 No 2 (Winter 2014), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 61 No 1 (Fall-2014), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Dawnbreaker Vol 60 No 3 (Spring 2014), Dawnbreaker Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Polarizing Issues In The American Political Parties: Women In Party Platforms, Hannah Vail

Honors College

This thesis is designed to investigate the relationship between the rise of cultural issues in political discussion and growing levels of polarization in the American political system. Current research within the field proposes many causes, forces, and tactics behind this growth of polarization. The corresponding increase in the prevalence of cultural issues in American politics is one such proposed cause or symptom. This thesis will provide an expansion on existing research through an exploration of the relationship between increased polarization and increasing prevalence of cultural issues in the United States.

The focus of this thesis is on the relationship between …

Building Bridges For Women Through Service-Learning: Bringing Students And Communities Together To Combat Domestic Violence In Honduras, Darlene Metcalf-Bergeron

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis defines service-learning and domestic violence, while describing how bringing students and communities together through service-learning courses can build and has already built bridges for victims of violence against women. Collaboration is essential in the quest to raise awareness about domestic violence through education. This thesis will demonstrate through data and photojournalism this collaboration between students of SPA/MLC Service-Learning Classes of UMaine from 2006 through to and including 2011.

As the themes in this thesis develop the reader will also begin to question what lies just beyond our borders and behind closed doors for women of the twenty-first century. …