Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Michelino: A Gay Short Story, Michael C. Vocino

Technical Services Department Faculty Publications

A chapter, a gay short story, about a central character in an as yet unpublished novel.

Sex, The Body, And Human Subjectivity In Luis Gotyisolo's Erotic Novel "Escalera Hacia El Cielo", Terri Carney

Terri M. Carney

Best known for his tetralogy Antagonía, Luis Goytisolo began his literary career under the Franco dictatorship and soon developed a reputation as an intellectual's writer. His intricate and sinewy prose challenged readers to follow his narrators down labyrinthine paths of extended metaphors, embedded clauses and erudite references. Interestingly enough, the novels of Goytisolo published in the last decade lack the narrative complexity and structural experimentalism characteristic of his earlier works. These 90s novels include: Estatua con palomas (1992), Mzungo (1996), Placer licuante (1997), and Escalera hacia el cielo (1999). Some might feel that his change to a more traditional narrative …

Coming Out Day Presenter Robyn Ochs - Beyond Binaries: Identity And Sexuality, Joseph A. Santiago, Carolyn Sovet

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Center

The program will explore the landscape of sexual orientation. Similar to snowflakes, no two people are exactly alike. So, how do we assign precise labels to our complicated and unique experiences? What is the relationship between experience and self-identity, between self-identity and the way we are "read" by others? In this interactive program, different experiences of identity, the complexity of attraction, and more will be explored.

"The German Discovery Of Sex", Gwen Walsh

Publications

News article by The Scarlet, Clark University's student-run newspaper on the symposium "German Discovery of Sex", held on April 16, 2011. This event was part of the Henry J. Leir Chair Programming for the 2010-2011 season, a position that Robert Tobin held from 2008 up until his passing in 2022.

Between God And The Apple: Divinity, Violence And Desire In A.L. Kennedy's 'Original Bliss', Abigail Rine

Faculty Publications - Department of English

This article investigates how female sexuality and desire can be refigured beyond dynamics of fear and subjugation. By offering a close reading of A.L. Kennedy’s novel Original bliss through the theories of He´le`ne Cixous and Luce Irigaray, this work highlights the relationship between violence and Western religious notions of divinity, sexuality and the female body. Kennedy’s novel portrays, in violent detail, that the way in which the religious dimension has been conceptualised and articulated enforces negative views of female sexuality and justifies violence against the body. Rather than merely confronting the religious denigration of feminine sexuality, however, Kennedy’s novel also …

Human Rights And Literature (Fall 2011), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

In this class, we will be reading literary and cultural documents to contemplate the concept of “human rights.” What rights do all humans have, simply by virtue of being human? Who counts as human? Do current understandings of human rights exclude some people? Do humans have more rights than other species? How do questions of gender and sexuality fit into the discussion of human rights?

As we seek to answer these questions, we will trace the development of human rights discourses from the Enlightenment to the present, looking at literature from a variety of cultures and human rights documents from …

Sexuality And Textuality (Fall 2011), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

“Sexuality and Textuality” serves as an introduction to gay and lesbian literary studies and queer theory. It looks at questions of sexuality and literature in ancient and early modern texts (from the Hebrew, Greek and English traditions), as well as in modern texts (from German, French, Spanish, Japanese and English traditions). In addition to literary texts, students will work with a number of cinematic representations of queer sexuality. Besides these primary texts, students will work with important secondary literature about sexuality.

“Queer Theory at the Roundabout.” A special feature of the course this year will be a series of four …

When Predator Becomes Prey: The Gendered Jargon Of Popular Culture, Melissa R. Ames

Melissa A. Ames

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century the vernacular of popular culture has been bombarded by sexualized terminology. Although these terms are often formed with humorous intent, their staying power and use as cultural descriptive categories is both intriguing and disturbing. Also troubling is the fact that the majority of these new terms, such as puma (a thirty-something female “dating” a younger male), cougar (a forty-plus female “dating” a younger male), and MILF (“mother I’d like to fuck”), are restricted to the female gender alone. This article analyzes the etymology of these terms, their use in popular culture (ranging …

The Angel And The Imp: The Duncan Sisters’ Performances Of Race And Gender, Jocelyn Buckner

Theatre Faculty Articles and Research

From 1923 to 1959 Vivian and Rosetta Duncan performed the show Topsy and Eva in front of thousands of audiences in the United States and abroad. This essay examines how the Duncan Sisters’ appropriation of blackness through a yin and yang performance of black and white womanhood, their sexualized but ultimately infantilizing routine as young girls, and their take on anarchistic comedy resulted in a particular spin on age, gender, race, and sexuality that reinforced their privilege as white women even while it pushed the boundaries of acceptable femininity in the swiftly shifting American culture of the first half of …

The German Discovery Of Sex (Spring 2011), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

In this course, we will use the tools of literary and cultural analysis, studying fictional, political, psychoanalytic and scientific works to investigate the emergence of modern sexual discourses in the German-speaking world. The Greek term “homo” (same) and the Latinate “sex” (sex) were first combined to describe someone with a sexual interest in members of their own sex in 1869 in the German-speaking world. Similar observations can be made about terms such as “heterosexual,” “masochist,” and “transvestite.” There was apparently an intense interest in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German-speaking central Europe in reconfiguring and reconsidering sexuality. Out of this …

There’S No Crying In Baseball: Feminization, Sport, And Spectacle In The All American Girls’ Professional Baseball League, Dan Murphy

American Studies Senior Theses

My thesis focuses on the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). Specifically, I explore aspects of femininity within the league and why Phillip Wrigley, the league’s first owner, and other league owners chose to accentuate femininity. In my research, I focus on certain features of the league, such as the league’s beauty school, player’s uniforms, sexuality, and race. I believe these and other factors played a role in how the league decided to market itself to Americans. Additionally I focus on how different members of the media wrote about the league. In writing about the AAGPBL, journalists from local …

Talking And Not Talking: Sexual Education And Ethics For Young Women Within The Evangelical Movement In America, Kate Sargent

CGU Theses & Dissertations

In this paper I intend to discuss the ways in which sex, sexuality, and the female body are treated in the discourse within the Evangelical movement, particularly with regard to teenaged and young girls. I will focus on the way young women are talked to about sex, and how they are socialized and educated to regard sexuality and gender. I will spend most of my time with the popular literature aimed at young women, analyzing the underlying theology and theory at work. I will extrapolate, through the use of the (admittedly limited) data regarding sexual activity among young Evangelicals, including …

When Predator Becomes Prey: The Gendered Jargon Of Popular Culture, Melissa R. Ames

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century the vernacular of popular culture has been bombarded by sexualized terminology. Although these terms are often formed with humorous intent, their staying power and use as cultural descriptive categories is both intriguing and disturbing. Also troubling is the fact that the majority of these new terms, such as puma (a thirty-something female “dating” a younger male), cougar (a forty-plus female “dating” a younger male), and MILF (“mother I’d like to fuck”), are restricted to the female gender alone. This article analyzes the etymology of these terms, their use in popular culture (ranging …

The Down Low And The Sexuality Of Race, Brad E. Stone

Philosophy Faculty Works

There has been much interest in the phenomenon called "the Down Low," in which "otherwise heterosexual" African American men have sex with other black men. This essay explores the biopolitics at play in the media’s curiosity about the Down Low. The Down Low serves as a critical, transgressive heterotopia that reveals the codetermination of racism, sexism, and heterosexism in black male sexuality.

Sexually Explicit, Socially Empowered: Sexual Liberation And Feminist Discourse In 1960s Playboy And Cosmopolitan, Lina Salete Chaves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I provide an analysis of 1960s American popular culture by examining Playboy, "The Playboy Philosophy," Cosmopolitan, and Sex and the Single Girl. These cultural artifacts furthered the feminist movement by challenging gender structures and sexuality. I discuss how these publications focused on the advancement of the individual through careerism, consumerism and sexuality. These publications assisted in challenging and breaking down various aspects of gender and sexual boundaries and assisted in reworking social limitations that kept women from advancing themselves outside of the pre-set gender roles of domesticity. Regardless of the traditional feminist critique of …