Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Between Worlds, Between Times: Thinking With Trans Narratives At The Limits Of Ontology And Temporality, Elden L. Yungblut

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

My thesis offers up an explicitly transfeminist mobilization of the theoretical notions of ontological pluralism and queer temporality against the pervasive cultural norm of cis-normativity and the dominant temporal logic of chrono-normativity. First, I critique the blatantly transphobic and fallacious rhetoric of Kathleen Stock, the face of the “gender critical” feminist movement in the UK, which I contextualize as part of a contemporary resurgence of the hateful legacy of trans-exclusion rooted in the second wave feminist movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s and cemented in academic theory by Janice Raymond’s (1979) Transsexual Empire. I then delve deeper, aiming to …

Still, Unfolding, Ramolen Mencero Laruan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Together with my Master of Fine Art thesis exhibition, still, unfolding, at Zalucky Contemporary (Toronto, Ontario), this dossier constitutes the following accompanying components: a comprehensive artist statement, documented artwork, an interview with artist Erika DeFreitas, and a curriculum vitae. These components contextualize my subject-position, and outline theoretical research, motivations, and reflections that drive my work. I expand on the diasporic experience, politics of knowledge, and the autobiographical genre as they are linked methodologies in the retrieval of immigrant histories. The fusion of autobiography and fiction becomes a hopeful approach in challenging forgotten or omitted history and confronts the expectations …

Critiquing Psychiatry, Narrating Trauma: Madness In Twentieth-Century North American Literature And Film, Sarah Blanchette

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation explores representations of trauma and mental distress in twentieth-century novels and films. Drawn on research that emphasizes the ways that marginalized communities—in particular women-coded, racialized, and Indigenous persons—have historically been pathologized, the thesis considers how select novels and films query biomedical approaches to mental illness and critique psychiatric contexts, which prioritize social control more than they provide substantive and humane forms of support and care. How might representations of trauma and mental distress be understood without confirming regimes of psy-authority or psy-power? The thesis takes up this core issue by building on theories drawn from Mad Studies, illuminating …

Dancing Across Difference: Transforming Habitual Modes Of Being In The World Through Movement, Kimberly Dority

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although some important scholarly work has been done on race, and whiteness, in relation to habit, my account addresses the role of movement in habit through dance. Dance is well-suited for exploring habit since dancers cultivate an intimate knowledge of their bodies as habitual dancing bodies. I argue that dancing can offer critical insight into how habitual modes of being in the world may be shifted and changed. Dancers’ mastery of movement not only consists in sedimenting habits within the body, but also involves actively exploring how one’s own bodily movement can be altered (Ravn 2017; Damkjaer, 2015; Ingerslev, 2013; …

Virus Interruptus: An Arendtian Exploration Of Political World Building In Pandemic Times, Rita A. Gardiner Ph.D, Katy Fulfer

Education Publications

Building upon a series of blog posts and conversations, two feminist scholars explore how political community, trust, responsibility, and solidarity are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the ways in which we can engage in political world-building during pandemic times through the work of Hannah Arendt. Following Arendt’s notion of the world as the space for human togetherness, we ask: how can we respond to COVID-19’s interruptions to the familiarity of daily life and our relationship to public space? By extending relational accounts of public health and organizational ethics, we critique a narrow view of solidarity that focuses on …

La Voz De Violeta Parra: Una Aproximación A Las Voces Como Materialización Del Vínculo Entre Cuerpo, Identidad Y Cultura, Martha L. Rojas Castaneda

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Violeta Parra (1917-1967) fue una artista multidisciplinaria chilena. A partir de su muerte, su obra adquirió mayor reconocimiento y, consecuentemente, su voz y su legado han trascendido el tiempo y las fronteras. El presente trabajo surge desde los estudios culturales de género sobre la voz como materialización de la unicidad de cada persona y su vínculo con la comunidad. Por lo que la voz de Violeta Parra, audible y discursiva, resultaría una huella de su identidad. Así, esta tesis es una aproximación a la voz de Parra, cuyo fin es comprender qué revela su voz escritural en Décimas: autobiografía en …

Exploring Being Queer And Performing Queerness In Popular Music, Rosheeka Parahoo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

For many pop artists, queer is what they do, not who they are. They perform queerness, rather than identify as queer. The research I present here suggests that popular culture’s understanding of queerness relies on a heteronormative lens, whereby queerness is objectified and paraded primarily as an artistic performance. My analysis demonstrates that David Bowie’s influence rests in his ability to create a space where his fans can perform queerness, without necessarily being queer. As such, Bowie’s performances have come to form our expectation of what a queer performance should look like. Continuing his legacy, Lady Gaga’s tribute to Bowie …

Racialized Women's Experiences Of Sexual Violence And Harassment In Canadian Higher Education: An Intersectional Analysis, Shirin Abdmolaei

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Conducted through a qualitative case study, this dissertation focuses on 15 racialized women’s experiences of sexual violence and harassment while attending a post-secondary institution in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on the notion of intersectionality as a conceptual and theoretical framework, this study investigates how the intersections of their identities shaped their experiences. Findings revealed a number of critical insights with respect to the racialized dimensions of sexual violence and harassment. The behaviours, comments, and actions participants received from men in inter-racial contexts illuminates the simultaneous experience of racialization, sexism, and fetishization which makes racialized women vulnerable to sexual violence and harassment. …

Knock On The Door: A Feminist Standpoint Theory Case Study Of Internationally Educated Chinese Females Finding Academic Positions In China, Chenzi Feng Zhao

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examines how gender shapes the experiences of internationally educated Chinese females in trying to obtain academic positions in Chinese higher education institutions from a feminist standpoint theory perspective. The interactions between education and gender in the contemporary globalized world have been an important theme in studies about education, gender, and social equity. Identifying the gaps in the statistic-based understandings of gender parity, this study adopts a qualitative narrative method and interviewed four female scholars who have applied and interviewed for academic jobs in China in the past four years. The findings are presented as four elaborate narratives. The …

(Un)Filtered Females: Exploring The Changing Representation Of Women In Cigarette Advertising, 1920-1940, Sophia Belyk

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Throughout the first half of twentieth century, the act of smoking transitioned from being an exclusively male to a predominantly female practice. Indeed, by the end of the twentieth century merely being female was considered a serious risk to developing a smoking habit. This cultural shift is reflected in contemporary cigarette advertising, in which women begin as attractive accessories to male smokers and gradually become depicted as smoking independently. These advertisements were actively engaged with the social worlds of the women they targeted, drawing upon their contemporary concerns and values, namely those of women’s liberation and an increased attention placed …

Duration And Depravity: Religious And Secular Temporality In Puritanism And The American Gothic, Taylor Kraayenbrink

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Duration and Depravity identifies a temporality of “sinful feeling” operating in the archive of Puritan writings of personal piety, such as diaries, autobiographies, conversion narratives, and sermons, and persisting into early American gothic literature. This temporality of sinful feeling is an attempt to discipline the self through temporal projection oriented towards the theological fact and religiously experienced feeling of sinfulness. Duration and Depravity engages with the proliferation of postsecular criticism in American literature studies generally, and Puritan studies more specifically. Postsecular criticism in literary studies is a style of historicism that reconsiders its primary archive’s position in newly complicated narratives …

ʿAbdulḥalīm Abū Shuqqa’S The Liberation Of Women In The Age Of Revelation: A Translation And Critical Commentary, Ibtehal Noorwali

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of Muslim scholars’ modern endeavors is to identify Islam’s egalitarian and liberating views on women as espoused by its earliest sources— the Qur’an and hadith. ʿAbdulḥalīm Abū Shuqqa makes such an attempt in his six-volume, Arabic book titled “The Liberation of Women in the Age of Revelation” (Taḥrīr al-Mar’a fī ‘Aṣr al-Risāla) published in 1995. He shows evidence from the Qur’an and authentic hadith reports for women’s autonomy, involvement in communal worship, public life, politics, battlefields, and professional work, among other activities. In an attempt to analyze and bring what was considered a ‘breakthrough’ in the Islamic …

To Include Or Not To Include: Men And The Liberian Women's Peace Hut Initiatives Towards Transformational Justice, Florence Wullo Anfaara

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Experiences Of Social Reproduction Among Migrant Women In The Brong-Ahafo Region Of Ghana, Jemima Nomunume Baada

Africa Western Collaborations Day 2020 Abstracts

No abstract provided.

The Simultaneous Book: Women's Writing In Contemporary Art, Maryse Lariviere

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Novels written by women authors who don’t adhere to the classification “visual artist” are nonetheless gaining momentum in today's contemporary art world. Yet works by authors such as Chris Kraus or Catherine Millet are often not recognized as artist’s novels because their authors are not or/and do not consider themselves to be visual artists. I contend that we can usefully situate their work within the genre of the artist’s novel by addressing how they invent artistic postures and artistic alter-egos within the autofictional worlds of their texts. My dissertation The Simultaneous Book proposes to open up the definition of the …

Politics Versus Policies: Fourth Wave Feminist Critiques Of Higher Education’S Response To Sexual Violence, Rita A. Gardiner Ph.D, Michelle Shockness, Jennifer Almquist, Hayley Finn

Education Publications

This article uses the lens of fourth wave feminism to examine media accounts of institutional and student responses in two cases of sexual violence at institutions of higher education. Competing discourses reveal a disconnect between what institutions say they do and students’ actual experiences of the institutional handling of sexual violence cases. When policies, actions, and values are not fully aligned, institutions of higher education are unable to respond to societal and institutional injustices. Hence, recommendations for better alignment between institutional values and actions are proposed.

Death Of The Clinic: Trans-Informing The Clinical Gaze To Counter Epistemic Violence, Diana E. Kuhl

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This case study research (Patton, 2002, 2014; Flyvberg, 2006) has grown out of an awareness of deep resistance from the psy disciplines to trans-informed epistemologies as a source of legitimate knowledge (Tosh, 2015, 2016; Winters, 2008). It focuses on examining how the closure of The Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) for Children and Youth at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, signaled a paradigm shift from the ‘treatment model’ to the ‘affirmative model’ with respect to clinical approaches for supporting trans and gender diverse children and youth. As such the case study involved tracing the …

Dead Men Walking: An Analysis Of Working-Class Masculinity In Post-2008 Hollywood Film, Ryan Schroeder

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Working-class masculinity has lost its steam. Since 2008, a sub-genre of Hollywood films has emerged that depicts the current crisis, and imminent demise, of working-class masculinity in the United States. The 2008 financial crisis has had devastating effects on the American economy, and particularly the working-class, whose precarious economic position has only been exacerbated under neoliberalism. These effects have become the thematic focus of a fringe genre of films, which show how the destabilization of the American economy has incited greater instability in gender relations, and has had an acute impact on working-class men. This thesis proceeds by analyzing how …

"I Need To Fight The Power, But I Need That New Ferrari": Conspicuous Consumption, New-School Hip-Hop And "The New Rock & Roll", Emmett H. Robinson Smith

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

2017 marked the year in which hip-hop officially became the most listened-to genre in the United States. This thesis explores hip-hop music’s rise to its now-hegemonic position within the music industry, seeking to provide insight into the increasingly popular sentiment that hip-hop is “the new rock & roll”. The “new-school” hip-hop artists of the last six years or so have also been the subject of widespread critical disdain, especially for their heightened degree of emphasis on conspicuous consumption. This study will track hip-hop’s ascent from the mid-1980s through to its current position as both a political vehicle and a commercial …

Politicizing The Absence Of Sex: Asexuality As A Tool For Radical Feminism, Rikki N. Bergen

Women's Studies and Feminist Research Presentations

No abstract provided.

Defined By Both Absence And Presence: Virginity As A Marker Of Girlhood, Rikki N. Bergen

Women's Studies and Feminist Research Presentations

Through reference to scholars from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, this essay will explore the cultural obsession of using virginity as a marker of girlhood or womanhood, and the effect that this has on women and girls.

A Directors Perspective Of Iconoclast Collective, Diyana Noory

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

In February 2016, Diyana co-founded ICONOCLAST with five of her good friends from the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts and Humanities (SASAH): Sama Al-Zanoon, Nara Monteiro, Emma Cohen, and Emily Wood. ICON is an arts and culture collective based at Western, and it is funded by SASAH and the Arts and Humanities Students Council (AHSC). Diyana and her co-founders had already been drawn to each other by their shared interests in art, culture, and progressive politics, and they wanted to create a community centered on these values. Here, Diyana reflects on her experiences as Director of ICON for …

Resistant Vulnerability In The Marvel Cinematic Universe's Captain America, Kristen Allison

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Established in 2008 with the release of Iron Man, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become a ubiquitous transmedia sensation. Its uniquely interwoven narrative provides auspicious grounds for scholarly consideration. The franchise conscientiously presents larger-than-life superheroes as complex and incredibly emotional individuals who form profound interpersonal relationships with one another. This thesis explores Sarah Hagelin’s concept of resistant vulnerability, which she defines as a “shared human experience,” as it manifests in the substantial relationships that Steve Rogers (Captain America) cultivates throughout the Captain America narrative (11). This project focuses on Steve’s relationships with the following characters: Agent Peggy Carter, Natasha …

Pornography: For Consumption, Not Creation: The Radical Nature Of The Commercial Sex Industry, Rikki N. Bergen

Women's Studies and Feminist Research Presentations

With use of texts by Adrienne Rich and Gayle Rubin, this essay will consider the moral panic produced by conservative interpretations of the sex industry and how consumerist acts of sex are inherently radical.

Building And Maintaining Lgbtq+ Picture Book Collections, Alissa Droog, Danielle Bettridge, Alyssa R. Martin, Ashleigh Yates-Mackay

FIMS Publications

The LGBTQ+ community has had to continuously fight for their rights, including their right to be represented in the library. This toolkit provides instruction on how to develop and manage a library collection of LGBTQ+ children’s picture books. It is split into four sections that include a guide to evaluating materials, recommended picture books, a guide to fighting censorship, and a list of recommended resources.

Biopolitics, Risk, And Reproductive Justice: The Governing Of Maternal Health In Canada's Muskoka Initiative, Jacqueline Potvin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I examine how Canada’s Muskoka Initiative discursively constructs and addresses maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) as a global development problem. I evaluate how the Muskoka Initiative aligns with, and departs from feminist articulations of sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice. I do this by analyzing how the Muskoka Initiative drew on and reinforced dominant norms of motherhood, and aligned with neoliberal development frameworks. I also examine how the reproductive bodies and lives of women in the Global South were configured as sites of both development intervention and biopolitical governance. My findings are based on a …

The Differentiation Of Smallholder Farming And Household Food Responsibilities In Northern Ghana, Siera Vercillo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the most urgent problems facing sub-Saharan Africa is that many people lack access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food, particularly in semi-arid regions such as northern Ghana. An important indication of this problem within Ghana is that stunting rates due to prolonged undernourishment are significantly higher in the northern regions than in other parts of the country, despite claims of an overall increase in the availability of food. Broadly, this dissertation employs qualitative case study research in the Northern Region (interviews N=109 and 12 focus groups) to describe the changes in access to resources, roles and …

A Queer Politics Of Imperceptibility: A Philosophy Of Resistance To Contemporary Sexual Surveillance, Andie Shabbar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis journeys through a series of events to develop a concept of “imperceptibility” as a mode of resistance to contemporary sexual surveillance. The events I examine include biometric recognition of gender and race at airport security checkpoints, the heteropatriarchal colonial surveillance of Indigenous peoples at Standing Rock, various protest actions, and the political potentials of glitch art. Exploring their unexpected points of connection, my goal is to bring into view acts of resistance against sexual surveillance that already operate below and above the threshold of everyday perception.

The project advocates for a philosophy of resistance that underscores the political …

Not So Charming: Analyzing Disney’S Non-Hegemonic Male Characters, Rikki N. Bergen

Women's Studies and Feminist Research Presentations

Focusing entirely on the 1991, animated, edition of the Disney story of Beauty and the Beast this essay navigates Disney's use of non-hegemonic male figures as a comedic outlet contributes to the power imbalances maintained between different displays of masculinity.

Searching For Wisdom: A Phenomenological Investigation Of Women's Perspectives Following Participation In An Ovarian Cancer Supportive Care Group, Helen Butlin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study used a novel methodology of hermeneutic-poetic-phenomenology to explore perspectives of women living with ovarian cancer. Each had participated in a supportive care group process Soul-Medicine prior to volunteering. Three women, Beth, Carrie, and Denise contributed to this study. The methodology was grounded in Gaston Bachelard’s philosophy of poetic-phenomenology. Data was analyzed with attention to image-centred knowledge; material imagination; reverie; and horizons of hope to elucidate their implicated aspects of wisdom and the ways participant’s formed their personal wisdom integrating feminist theories of embodiment and bioethics.

Findings are framed through three images of a uniquely formed inner ‘wisdom-compass’, an …