Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Virginia Woolf Of One's Own: Consequences Of Adaptation In Michael Cunningham's The Hours, Brooke Leora Grant

Theses and Dissertations

With a rising interest in visual media in academia, studies have overlapped at literary and film scholars' interest in adaptation. This interest has mainly focused on the examination of issues regarding adaptation of novel to novel or novel to film. Here I discuss both: Michael Cunningham's novel The Hours, which is an adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and the 2002 film adaptation of Cunningham's novel. However, my thesis also investigates a different kind of adaptation: the adaptation of a literary and historical figure. By including in The Hours a fictionalization of Virginia Woolf, Cunningham entrenches his adaptation with Virginia …

Panel Participant On Environmental Racism And Ecofeminist/Ecowomanist Theology Panel, Laura Stivers

Laura Stivers

Feminist Scholarship Review: Intolerance And Humanism, Gloria Steinem, Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, Isis M. Irizarry, Dulce Amor Imbo

Feminist Scholarship Review

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women's experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short stories

Race In Feminism: Critiques Of Bodily Self-Determination In Ida B. Wells And Anna Julia Cooper, Stephanie Athey

Trotter Review

If, as Angela Davis has argued, "the last decade of the nineteenth century was a critical moment in the development of modern racism," the same can be said of the development of modern feminism. Late nineteenth-century feminism, like institutional racism, saw "major institutional supports and ideological justifications" take shape across this period. Organizations of American women, both black and white, were shaping political arguments and crafting activist agendas in a post-Reconstruction America increasingly enamored of hereditary science, prone to lynching, and possessed of a virulent nationalism. This essay takes a historical view of "womanhood," bodily self-determination and well-being, concepts now …

Can Developing Women Create Primitive Art? And Other Questions Of Value, Meaning And Identity In The Circulation Of Janakpur Art, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, I examine the values and meanings that adhere to objects made by Maithil women at a development project in Janakpur, Nepal – objects collectors have called ‘Janakpur Art’. I seek to explain how and why changes in pictorial content in Janakpur Art – shifts that took place over a period of five or six years in the 1990s – occurred, and what such a change might indicate about the link between Maithil women’s lives, development, and tourism. As I will demonstrate, part of the appeal for consumers of Janakpur Art has been that it is produced at …

Wome In The Curriculum And Women's Studies Program 2006-2007, Womein In The Curriculum And Women's Studies Program, University Of Maine Staff

Maine Women's Publications - All

No abstract provided.

Making The “Unfit, Fit”: The Rhetoric Of Mainstreaming In The World Bank’S Commitment To Gender Equality And Disability Rights, Rebecca Dingo

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In the 1990s The World Bank president James Wolfensohn urged Bank policy- makers to consider gender in their development policies; in 2004 the Bank made a similar commitment to include people with disabilities in their programmatic plans. Examining materials from Bank archives and from “The World Bank: Disability and Development” conference in 2004, this essay demonstrates the contradictory arguments put forth by the World Bank’s gender, disability, and development programs.

Mission Propaganda: A Study Of Form, Colonial Attitudes, And Feminism In Maria Theresia Ledóchowska's Newspaper Publication, Jakob N. Jarvis

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis examines Mission Propaganda, a newspaper-style publication distributed by the St. Peter Claver Sodalität, an association of nuns, lay-members, and subscribers founded by Maria Theresia Ledóchowska in 1894. The “sodality” was dedicated to supporting Catholic missionary work in Africa, and advocated for the liberation of African slaves. Ledóchowska used Mission Propaganda to encourage Europeans to support the African missions. She also used it to inform Europeans about African culture. She attempted to create a connection between the need for Catholic missionary work in Africa and the need for reform in Europe. She believed Europeans needed moral, religious, and social …

Disability As Embodied Memory? A Question Of Identity For The Amputees Of Sierra Leone, Maria Berghs

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper examines the problematic construction of amputee identity in Sierra Leone society after the decade long civil war through discourses and imagery of amputees presented in the media. Empowerment by NGO’s and other charities lead to a reaffirmation of amputee identity in which notions of class, ethnicity, and age may not play a big role, but gender certainly remains a relevant cultural marker.

Isolation And Companionship: Disability In Australian (Post) Colonial Cinema, Kathleen Ellis

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Despite reflecting a postcolonial rethinking of identity throughout the 1990s, disability was positioned as ‘Other’ in Australian national cinema. The intersection between culture, gender, nationality, and disability is evident in films located in traditional colonial spaces (The Well, The Piano). This article concentrates on the fascination 1990s Australian filmmakers had with disabled women; otherwise strong characters who redundantly fulfill cultural expectations of femininity. A disability perspective illustrates the link between disability and sexism in Australian Cinema.

Monsters In The Closet: Biopolitics And Intersexuality, Nadia Guidotto

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this paper, I focus predominantly on the hermaphrodite (intersex, in modern discourse) and its relationship to other abject bodies in history to show how biopolitics creates and regulates populations of monsters in order to establish and sustain a particular structure in society. This particular structure is based on what Judith Butler has called the heterosexual matrix, which I will extend to include racial and liberal elements.

I Don’T Ask God To Move The Mountain, Just Give Me The Strength To Climb It”: Disability Stories Of Southern Rural African American Women, Aline Gubrium

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this article, I focus on the life stories of African-American women living in a rural community in the South, particularly on their career trajectory stories. Life in this small community leaves little to offer in terms of work, with most women working either in a clothing factory in town, in the state prison located on the outskirts of town, or working in nearby University Town as nursing assistants or custodial workers—all jobs which rely on the participants’ strenuous labor and which often result in disabilities (often related to back or hip injuries) and the participants’ consequent inability to work …

Review Of Kounandi (Film From Burkina Faso) By Apolline Traoré, Barbara Hoffman

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

The Technology Of Immortality, The Soul, And Human Identity, Richard A. Jones

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this paper, I argue that human beings will soon achieve immortality, but that that immortality will be neither the theistic promise of resurrection of the body nor the soul. Rather, I suggest that technological immortality—the ability through pure techné to reproduce any human life ever lived—is not only possible, but inevitable. Moreover, more than a cursory survey of the biological sciences, computer technology, and fictive literature, this essay also examines the normative dimensions of this near-future reality; ought we or ought we not?

Entremundos/ Among Worlds: New Perspectives On Gloria Anzaldúa Edited By Analouise Keating, Colleen Kattau

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Cultural Rehabilitation: Hansen’S Disease, Gender And Disability In Korea, Eunjung Kim

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This essay explores how leprosy was used to enforce cultural inferiority, which resulted in the oppression of affected people in Korea. The literature shows that images of lepers as cannibals infiltrated family lives in the communities and made institutionalization inevitable. Contemporary cultural representations depict marriage between disabled men and nondisabled women as a symbolic bridge between the segregated space of "lepers" and the "healthy." Such efforts reinforce the normative power of heterosexual marriage.

Vitalism: Subjectivity Exceeding Racism,Sexism And (Psychiatric) Ableism, James Overboe

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Liberal discourse has argued against the pathology of differences that stem from being gendered or racialized. Yet, liberal discourse continues to pathologize the differences that derive from disabilities whether physical, mental, and/or developmental. This paper considers the position of a woman who is the site of the coming together of being gendered, being aboriginal, and being psychiatrized, and argues that her vitalism that has been psychiatrized benefits her subjectivity.

Gender, Disability And The Postcolonial Nexus, Pushpa Parekh

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This study will focus on intersecting gender, disability and Postcoloniality nexus and will foreground the contributions to and interventions from gendered disability perspectives within selected postcolonial cultural works in India and the Indian diaspora, including literary works, films, performances and activism. The articulation of intersecting identity perspectives, inclusive of disability, is a significant though ignored area within Gender, Disability or Postcolonial studies. Bringing these areas together within the current modes of interdisciplinary inquiry involves crossing the boundaries of identity categories and cultural locations.

The Disabling Nature Of The Hiv / Aids Discourse Among Hbcu Students: How Postcolonial Racial Identities And Gender Expectations Influence Hiv Prevention Attitudes And Sexual Risk-Taking, Bruce H. Wade

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This analysis reveals how some African American college students respond to the discourse on HIV / AIDS as a social disability. The methodology includes surveys (n = 217), focus groups and interviews with convenience samples of students attending a consortium of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. The findings show that the perceived risk of HIV is high in this community, that nearly half of students use condoms inconsistently even though they are well aware of the risks of unprotected sex and their levels of HIV / AIDS knowledge are high. Social stigma, gender role expectations, an …

(Post)Colonising Disability, Mark Sherry

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Disability and postcolonialism are two important, and inter-related, discourses in the social construction of the nation and those bodies deemed worthy of citizenship rights. This paper acknowledges the material dimensions of disability, impairment -and postcolonialism and its associated inequalities – but it also highlights the rhetorical connections which are commonly made between elements of postcolonialism (exile, diaspora, apartheid, slavery, and so on) and experiences of disability (deafness, psychiatric illness, blindness, etc.) The paper suggests that researchers need to be far more careful in their language around experiences of both disability and postcolonialism. Neither disability nor postcolonialism should be understood as …

Colonial Discourses Of Disability And Normalization In Contemporary Francophone Immigrant Narratives: Bessora’S 53 Cm And Fatou Diome’S Le Ventre De ’Atlantique, Julie Nack Ngue

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this paper, I examine recent Francophone immigrant narratives in a disability studies framework to reveal the ways in which colonial discourses of illness and disability on the Black female body haunt contemporary discussions of immigration and integration. While these novels portray female immigrant bodies as subject to constant surveillance and examination within multiple institutions of ‘normalization,’ they also expose oppressive discourses of illness and disability in order to challenge the paradigms of normality and homogeneity which undergird French treatment of immigrants.

Editorial, Pushpa Parekh

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

A Paradox Of Diversity: Billions Invested, But Women Still Leave, Rebekah S. Heppner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2005, women made up 46.4 percent of the United States labor force but only 1.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs (Catalyst 2006). Although gains have been made since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, there is clearly something stopping women from equal representation at the top. Since the late 1980s, businesses have spent billions of dollars on initiatives designed to assist them in dealing with the anticipated increase in the "diversity" of their workplaces (Lubove 1997; Stodghill II 1996; Johnston and Packer 1987). Is there potential for diversity initiatives to help women conquer the "glass ceiling?" …

Ecological Art: Ruth Wallen And Cultural Activism, Susan Birchler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Twentieth century modernity has provoked multiple problems ranging from environmental degradation to human rights violations. Globally, diverse communities of people have organized to promote, not just reactive reforms, but a fundamental alteration of the foundational worldview underlying these issues. Radical activists committed their work to promoting an alternative ethos based on egalitarian, democratic, and ecologically-wise concepts. An array of methodologies emerged from these endeavors. More radical political groups focused on cultural tools to engage people in the construction of an alternative worldview. Radical activists utilized two forms of cultural politics: prefigurative politics, the physical presentation of an envisioned future and …

Wack! Art And The Feminist Revolution At Moca, Micol Hebron

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This article focuses on an art exhibit featuring works of feminist art throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Another "Scandalous Woman": Edna O’Brien, Irish Feminism And Her Gébler Men, Jeffrey P. Griffin

Honors Scholar Theses

Irish novelist Edna O’Brien suffered a tumultuous early reception; her first six novels were banned in Ireland, and critics complained that her writing was sensational and gratuitous. Yet by the time Ireland’s economic boom arrived on the island, many contemporary critics suddenly applaud the novelist’s writing. Is this significant change in critical reception based on O’Brien’s development as an author? Or was O’Brien writing stories that were ahead of her time and are only now accepted by contemporary critics? My paper considers the writing and critical reception of Edna O’Brien by placing her life and career alongside three waves of …

Dignity Overdue: Women’S Rights Activism In Support Of Foreign Domestic Workers In Singapore, Lenore T. Lyons

Faculty of Arts - Papers (Archive)

The forces of globalisation increasingly compel feminist activists to engage internationally, either through their involvement in transnational networks and social movements, or by incorporating understandings of the ‘global’ into local and national activist practices. However, as differently situated actors with diverse agendas and priorities come together to address women’s rights within a transnational frame they face a range of challenges and contradictions. Rather than simply transcending the ‘national’, transnational feminist activists must pay particular attention to the roles played by nation-states and national governments in mediating the relationship between local and transnational groups. Amongst the issues they must consider are …

Introduction: The Sexual Body, Shelly J. Eversley, Jennifer L. Morgan

Publications and Research

Introduction to the special issue, "The Sexual Body," edited by Shelly Eversley and Jennifer L. Morgan.

The Conundrum Of Women’S Studies As Institutional: New Niches, Undergraduate Concerns, And The Move Towards Contemporary Feminist Theory And Action, Rebecca K. Willman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I address current debates on the perceived lack of contemporary feminist activism and concerns of Women's Studies as existing within university institutions. I propose that Women's Studies programs and departments serve as locations useful for feminists interested in participating in feminist activism in and beyond the university. By viewing Women's Studies programs and departments as contemporary abeyance structures in feminist movements, I revisit the ways in which debates on differences between second and third wave feminisms have contributed to social change. In doing so, I highlight how the feminist movement maintains itself between upsurges in mass-based visible …

The Constructions Of Fay Weldon, Woman Of Letters, Harriet Blymiller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary British novelist Fay Weldon negotiates the postmodern "culture industry" as the self-conscious heir to a traditon of women writers dating back to the Middle Ages. Like her predecessors, Weldon defensively and offensively negotiates ideological constructions of womanhood, including injunctions to chastity, modesty, and silence; prohibitions against formal education for women; disdain for the literary production and commercial success of women writers; and the application of double standards in the critical reception of their works. Modernizing the strategies traditionally deployed by women writers, Weldon engages with the advertising industry and the mass-oriented literature of radio and television, using them to …