Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Plotting The Plantationocene With The History Of Mary Prince, Shelby Johnson

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

In this essay, I consider how The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) extends vital affordances for assembling a literary history of ecological rupture, settler colonialism, and transatlantic slavery. These insights arise from my experiences teaching Prince in “Plotting the Plantationocene in Early Atlantic Literature” (Fall 2021), a course which took up what it means to orient to historical formations of climate change as co-emergent with plantation systems. I argue that my students explored how figures like Prince open politically vibrant pathways for being in the world otherwise to plantation modernity.

Subversive Cartography: Teaching Mary Prince And Saidiya Hartman, Carolina Hinojosa

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This chapter utilizes Hartman’s methodology of retrieval to create a map1 in StoryMap JS2 (“the map” or “this map”) that analyzes multiple geographic spaces in The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave Narrative and Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. The map is an archive or a witness to some of the geographical spaces Mary Prince lived (and was sold) as an enslaved woman seeking freedom and the places in which Saidiya Hartman has conducted research or visited in Ghana as a “free” woman. Layering the past over present creates a …

The Black Wanderer: Reading The Black Diaspora, Resistance, And Becoming In The History Of Mary Prince In The Classroom, Nicole Carr

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

This paper examines The History of Mary Prince as a pedagogical tool for exploring complexities within the Black Diaspora. As Paul Gilroy’s articulations of the Black Atlantic inform my approach, Prince’s circuitous journey through the West Indies and England situates her process of becoming as one mired in longing and loss. Encouraging students to consider Prince as a wandering soul in search of not only freedom, but also solid familiar connections lays the foundation for merging her narrative with other enslaved Black people traversing countries and regions on ships against their will. Ample research material available on the survivors of …

Women, Slavery, And The Archive: Innovations In Slavery Studies And Contemporary Connections, Srividhya Swaminathan

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

“Women, Slavery, and the Archive: Innovations in Slavery Studies and Contemporary Connections”

Early scholarship on slavery, abolition, and the British empire largely ignored the contribution of women of any race to the African Institution. British women who participated in boycotts, produced literary texts against African enslavement, and did the legwork of circulating petitions were relegated to footnotes until well into the twentieth century when women scholars began to create space in the canon for the unrecognized or under-recognized women writers. These new avenues of research evolved through decades to become more inclusive, more critical, and more ground-breaking in bringing the …

Deconstructing And Decolonizing Identities Of “Gender” And “Sex” When Viewed As Anti-Black: Black Narratives Outside Of The Binary, Didier Salgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How is “Reality” experienced in the Black body? Is “Reality” an objective article which is outside of the realm of personal experience? Assigned sex is often assumed an objective biological phenomenon that exists everywhere and in all communities. Gender is often thought about as a socially constructed form of identity which is expressed in various ways. In this thesis, I critically examine the terror of “reality” on the Black body, looking at the ways that Black people who’ve experienced discomfort with gender and sex categories experience the “world” around them. Diving deeply into their own experiences and the meanings they …

Making A Way: An Auto/Ethnographic Exploration Of Narratives Of Citizenship, Identity, (Un)Belonging And Home For Black Trinidadian[-]American Women, Anjuliet G. Woodruffe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research study is to gather, convey and explore the lived experience related to transnational identity construction for Black Trinidadian[-]American women. I adopt an interdisciplinary approach to better understand what it means to live as, and be, a Black Trinidadian[-]American. Using auto/ethnography and interviews, I seek to answer the following research questions: (1) How do Black Trinidadian[-]American women describe their negotiation of cultural identity in Trinidad and the United States? (2) How do Black Trinidadian[-]American women describe “in-between” homeplaces within the intersectional context of gender, race, class, and culture? (3) How do Black, Trinidadian[-]American women describe transnational, …

Sisterhood & Scholarship While Black, Stephanie R. Anckle

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

No abstract provided.

Women, Peace And Security In Zimbabwe - The Case Of Conflict In Non War Zones, Rutendo Chabikwa

Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is the United Nation’s (UN) key policy instrument for addressing gender violence in conflict zones. However, the agenda has been preoccupied with “hot” conflicts, and its application and relevance to sustained, but “low level” conflict situations is poorly conceptualized. This research considers this issue through a case study of Zimbabwe since 2000. I make the case for broadening the understanding of conflict as found in the WPS agenda.

This paper addresses the question: ‘How does the case of Zimbabwe exemplify the need for a broader understanding of conflict within the WPS agenda as …

Making The Case For Genocide, The Forced Sterilization Of Indigenous Peoples Of Peru, Ñusta P. Carranza Ko

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, …

When The Beat Drops: Exploring Hip Hop, Home And Black Masculinity, Marquese Lamont Mcferguson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this autoethnographic dissertation, I take readers on a narrative journey to three of my storied homeplaces and explore my lived experiences within each site. In the process of exploring my homeplaces, I analyze how I perform my black masculine self within the context of each location, how my cultural body supports and challenges hegemonic black masculinity, and how each location constrains and frees up my performance of self. With this dissertation, I will contribute to the field of communication studies by extending the method and writing practice of autoethnography, the theorization of the black masculine, and the exploration of …

Knowledge Networks: Contested Geographies In The History Of Mary Prince, Leah M. Thomas

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830

The History of Mary Prince, a West-Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831) is the first published woman’s slave narrative. In her History, Prince describes horrendous physical violence to which she and other enslaved peoples of African descent are subjected as well as the corresponding psychological and sexual abuse they endure. While Prince “speaks” the sexual abuse to some extent, how she knows what she knows goes unspoken. She expresses her knowledge of reading and writing and, at times, of the law, but she does not explain how she obtains this knowledge or knows what she knows. Her optimism to …

On Her Own: A Qualitative Study On The College-To-Career Transition Of Black Second-Generation Alumnae, Ladessa Y. Mitchell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the college-to-career transition of Black second-generation alumnae in the development phase of emerging adulthood using Schlossberg’s (2011) Transition Model. As the researcher, I collected data from Black second-generation alumnae of predominantly White public universities in Florida to examine how their intersecting identities (i.e., race, gender, and educational status) and use of metaphorical capital (i.e., social, cultural, and human capital) influence their transition. The conceptual framework for this study is based on the 4 S’s of Schlossberg’s Transition Model as well as emerging adulthood, forms of capital, and the intersecting identities of …

Undying (And Undead) Modern National Myths: Cannibalism And Racial Mixture In Contemporary Brazilian Vampire Fiction, Jacob C. Brown

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Contemporary cultural media illustrates the vampire as an important symbolic figure in the Brazilian imaginary. For example, in twentieth and twenty-first century Brazilian fiction, television, and political discourse, vampires have risen from their supposedly European origins as expressions of urban decay, comic excess, and government corruption in Brazil. Beyond these representations, I focus on three contemporary novels in which the vampire also plays a starring role. O vampiro que descobriu o Brasil (1999) by Ivan Jaf, Aventuras do vampiro de Palmares (2014) by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro, and Dom Pedro I Vampiro (2015) by Nazarethe Fonseca stand out from other creative reimaginings …

Race And Gender In (Re)Integration Of Victim-Survivors Of Csec In A Community Advocacy Context, Joshlyn Lawhorn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I use feminist ethnography at a nonprofit organization to analyze the racialized gender in (re)integration of victim-survivors of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). Critical race feminism and intersectionality are the theoretical frameworks to guide the analysis of community advocacy. The analysis considers two themes with various subsections that capture CSEC at the site. The first theme analyzes the definition, challenges, coordination and rhetoric of reintegration at the site. The second theme highlights the site’s racial identity, Black victimhood of victim-survivors of CSEC in the context of community, and racialized gender within reintegration. I discuss the strategic …

La Adaptación Afro-Futurística Y El Placer Como Supervivencia En "Los Pueblos Silenciosos" De Elena Palacios Ramé, Samuel Ginsburg

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

In “The Silent Towns,” from the 1950 collection The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury tells the story of the last man and woman left on Mars. While Walter has romanticized visions of a perfect match, he is ultimately disappointed by Genevieve’s and chooses to live out his life alone. Sixty years later, director Elena Palacios Ramé revived this science fiction classic to ask a simple question with a complex answer: What happens if you move the story to Havana? In the short film Los pueblos silenciosos (2010), Palacios replaces Mars with an abandoned Cuban capital, matching Walter with an extravagant Afro-Cuban …

The Spirit Of Friendship: Girlfriends In Contemporary African American Literature, Tangela La'chelle Serls

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Spirit of Friendship: Girlfriends in Contemporary African American Literature examines spiritual subjectivities that inspire girlfriends in three contemporary novels to journey towards actualization. It examines the girlfriend bond as a space where the Divine Spirit can flourish and assist girlfriends as they seek to become actualized. This project raises epistemological questions as it suggests that within the girlfriend dynamic, knowledge that is traditionally subjugated is formed and refined. Finally, girlfriend epistemology is considered in light of Black Girl Magic, a contemporary social and cultural movement among Black women.

Our Counter-Life Herstories: The Experiences Of African American Women Faculty In U.S. Computing Education, Shetay Nicole Ashford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this life history qualitative study was to explore the Counter-Life Herstories of African American women faculty in U.S. Computing Education. Counter-Life Herstories are derived from Counterstories, life histories, and herstories as powerful social justice tools to uncover hidden truths about marginalized groups’ experiences. Through the collection of timelines, counter-life story interviews, and reflective journal writings, I co-constructed and interpreted the Counter-Life Herstories of five participants using an integrative conceptual framework that included critical race theory and Black feminist thought as interpretive frameworks, and Afrocentric feminist epistemology to govern my knowledge validation process. As an emerging African American …

'She Shall Not Be Moved': Black Women's Spiritual Practice In Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, And Home, Rondrea Danielle Mathis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

‘She Shall Not Be Moved’: Black Women’s Spiritual Practice in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Paradise, and Home argues that from The Bluest Eye, Morrison’s debut novel, to her 2012 novel, Home, Morrison brings her female characters to voice, autonomy, and personal divinity through unconventional spiritual work. The project addresses the history of Black women’s activist and spiritual work, Toni Morrison’s engagement with unconventional spiritual practice, and closes with a personal interrogation of the author’s connection to Black women’s spiritual practice.

The Triumvirate Of Intersectionality: A Case Study On The Mobilization Of Domésticas In Brazil, Kristen Lei Nash

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I look at the mobilization of the domestic workers in Brazil as a social movement. In Brazil, the domestic workers have managed to organize continuously for over eight decades using both informal and formal mechanisms to connect workers all over the country in unique ways. By viewing these women and the ways in which they have organized in the framework of a social movement, we can begin to identify their repertoires of contention and how those repertoires have contributed to the successes of the movement. In order to guide this investigation, I ask, how has the doméstica …

"We're Taking Slut Back": Analyzing Racialized Gender Politics In Chicago's 2012 Slutwalk March, Aphrodite Kocieda

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examined bodied activism in Chicago's Slutwalk 2012 march, a contemporary movement initiated in Toronto, Canada that publicly challenged the mainstream sentiment that women are responsible for their own rape and victimization. Adopting an intersectional approach, I used textual analysis to discuss photographs posted on the official Chicago Slutwalk website to explore the ways this form of public bodied protest discursively engages women's empowerment from movement feminism as well as third wave and postfeminisms. I additionally analyzed the overall website and its promotional materials for the Slutwalk marches as well as how Chicago's photographic representations privilege the white female …

Understanding Social Integration And Student Involvement As Factors Of Self-Reported Gains For African American Undergraduate Women, Edna Jones Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diversity of student populations within higher education has considerably increased, particularly for women and minority populations, which is indicative of greater access to education toward a college degree. However, increased diversity of student populations has introduced a new set of challenges for higher education administrators in that it is becoming increasingly difficult for administrators to maintain current educational methods when considering the changing needs of matriculating students. As a result, higher education institutions are compelled to strategize beyond the "one-size-fits all" approach in the way teaching and support services are delivered in order to provide a more holistic approach to …

"You Understand Me Now": Sampling Nina Simone In Hip Hop, Amanda Renae Modell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overarching goal of this research is to explicate the implications of hip hop artists sampling Nina Simone's music in their work. By regarding Simone as a critical social theorist in her own right, one can hear the ways that hip hop artists are mobilizing her tradition of socially active self-definition from the Civil Rights/Black Power era(s) in the post-2000 United States. By examining both the lyrics and the instrumental compositions of Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana, Common, Tony Moon, Talib Kweli, Mary J. Blige and Will.I.Am, G-Unit and Timbaland, and bearing in mind the intersecting oppressions of race, class, gender, …