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Journal

2018

Feminism

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Institution
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Articles 31 - 37 of 37

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Half The Picture, John C. Lyden Jan 2018

Half The Picture, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Half the Picture (2018), directed by Amy Adrion.


The Next Forty Presidents, Ori Aronson Jan 2018

The Next Forty Presidents, Ori Aronson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

A thought experiment in feminist constitutionalism, this Article explores a radical argument: allow only women to be elected as the next forty U.S. presidents. While on its face blatantly discriminatory, the forty female presidents rule turns out to be a robustly justifiable idea, along multiple axes of political fairness, and not to women alone—rather to the electorate as a whole. Due to several of its unique characteristics, the presidency turns out to be particularly fitting to innovation that would correct past injustices of political exclusion. Corrective justice, affirmative action, feminist critique, voter autonomy, and the democratic costs of identity politics …


Frankenstein: A Feminist Birth Myth Of Morbid Conception, Madison R. Rahner Jan 2018

Frankenstein: A Feminist Birth Myth Of Morbid Conception, Madison R. Rahner

Bridges: A Journal of Student Research

In the context of Mary Shelley’s biography and prose style, the theme and structure of Frankenstein indicate that, in addition to being an esteemed work of gothic horror, the novel is a feminist birth myth: a perverse story of maternity and a scathing critique of patriarchal dominance over the feminine. Frankenstein, as a maternal figure, repeatedly seeks to smother female sexuality and usurp heterosexual reproduction through grotesque and unnatural means. The ensuing death and violence are consequences of Frankenstein’s inadequacy as a mother and the insufficiency of masculinity. The monster’s morbid conception and subsequent murders intertwine birth and death in …


Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren Jan 2018

Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

One of the most pressing characteristics of the neoliberal restructuring of academia, together with increased managerialism, performativity measures, and a “customer service” approach, is the casualization or precarization of academic work. Casualization entails a fragmentation of academic work, where academics are forced to move between workplaces on hourly-paid and fixed-term contracts, often doing their job without access to resources such as an office, training, or paid research time. While a number of feminist scholars have investigated the ways in which feminist academics negotiate the ever-increasing mechanisms of individualization, ranking, and auditing of their work, this article focuses on the precarious …


"We Sick": The Deweys As Women's Willful Self-Destruction In Toni Morrison's Sula, Kathleen Anderson, Gayle Fallon Jan 2018

"We Sick": The Deweys As Women's Willful Self-Destruction In Toni Morrison's Sula, Kathleen Anderson, Gayle Fallon

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Toni Morrison explores the complexities of race, gender, and matrilineal influence in Sula. Although much recent feminist criticism has addressed the operations of race and gender in the novel, this essay provides the first developed examination of Morrison’s strategic use of three diminutive boys, all named “dewey,” to emphasize the willfully self-destructive tendencies of the novel’s female characters. Burdened with their community’s limiting idealizations of femininity and motherhood, the women of Sula practice various forms of self-harm in an effort to develop and proclaim their holistic, autonomous selves. The deweys’ mischievous childhood games foreshadow the consequences of female self-harm, but …


Reclaiming The Streets: Investigating Female Experience Of Cinematic Urban Violence, Angelica De Vido Jan 2018

Reclaiming The Streets: Investigating Female Experience Of Cinematic Urban Violence, Angelica De Vido

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

The spatial ideologies and narrative tropes of gendered victimhood, which are designed to induce fear and anxiety, are routinely employed to govern and restrict female access to and experience of urban spaces—both in cinematic depictions and in the real world. This paper explores how such tropes are challenged and rewritten in three screen narratives based in urban landscapes: London in Happy-Go- Lucky (2008), Paris in Amélie (2001), and New York in Sex and the City (1998–2004). Contrary to the ideologies of fear that routinely dominate urban narratives, I will argue that the texts under discussion instead display the city as …


Emancipating The Passive Muse: A Call For A Feminist Approach To Writing Biographies On Historical Women, Ina C. Seethaler Jan 2018

Emancipating The Passive Muse: A Call For A Feminist Approach To Writing Biographies On Historical Women, Ina C. Seethaler

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This essay analyzes two popular biographies on historical women to interrogate how a focus on gender has shaped the genre: Nancy Ruben Stuart’s The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation (2008) and Jung Chang’s Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013). I argue that biographers who perpetuate gender stereotypes miss a momentous opportunity during the current life writing boom in the United States to educate readers on women’s social, cultural, and political contributions worldwide. In proposing that feminist-informed biographies are more accurate, complete, and make social …