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Full-Text Articles in European Languages and Societies

La Fille Publique: Depictions Of Sex Work In Fin-De-Siècle Literature, Nicole Araujo Dec 2021

La Fille Publique: Depictions Of Sex Work In Fin-De-Siècle Literature, Nicole Araujo

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This thesis conducts a feminist analysis of depictions of sex work in fin-de-siècle, or turn of the19th-century, French literature. It draws connections between literature from this time period and the social and political forces that sought to eradicate female sexual autonomy. In the introduction, the political and social setting of fin-de-siècle France is explored, when sex work was widely prevalent and for many women offered a route to sexual and financial autonomy that was otherwise unattainable, much to the anxiety and irritation of the patriarchal forces in place.The first chapter analyzes Emile Zola’s Nana as a classic representation of the …


Blind Advocacy: Blind Readers, Disability Theory, And Accessing John Gower, Jonathan Hsy Dec 2013

Blind Advocacy: Blind Readers, Disability Theory, And Accessing John Gower, Jonathan Hsy

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Toward the end of his life, medieval poet John Gower (d. 1408) composed Latin poetry about his own progressive blindness, and later nineteenth-century Blind readers appropriated Gower’s work as part of a platform to advocate for changed perceptions and opportunities for the blind and other people with disabilities. In this essay, I approach nineteenth-century narrative compilations of blind lives (which include Gower’s) as transformative acts of literary historiography. These compilers not only appropriate the medieval blind poet to advance their own social and political ends, but they also create a new disability-centered approach to the entire Western artistic tradition. I …