Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Priestesshoods As Expressions Of Civic Identity, Isabella Kershner

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the role of priestesshoods in shaping the civic identity of women in Classical Athens. It challenges the traditional narrative that confines Athenian women to the domestic sphere by highlighting their public and influential roles in religious practices. Through a meticulous analysis of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic evidence, the study traces the journey of Athenian females from childhood rituals to the esteemed positions of the High Priestess of Athena Nike and Athena Polias, revealing how these religious roles served as both a spiritual passage and a civic curriculum.

The thesis argues that these priestesshoods …

Shaping Western Views Of Homosexuality In 20th Century Europe Through Community, Sarah Palluconi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis will discuss a community of transnational sexual reformers and their influence on public and private views of homosexuality between the 1890s to the 1930s. This community of sexual reformers had ties to the World League for Sexual Reform (WLSR), an international organization that operated from 1928 to 1935. The WLSR discussed birth control, sexual education, prostitution, venereal disease, and, of course, homosexuality in terms of the law and society. By analyzing the few leading figures who studied homosexuality and sexology at the beginning of the 20^th century, I have found that the correspondence and discussion of homosexuality …

Feminist Realizations Of Assisted Reproductive Technology In Contemporary Science Fiction, Amanda Mullet

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Modern science fiction has seen an increase in reproductive fiction, particularly feminist reproductive fiction, but this has not always been the case. Science fiction has been called “a traditionally masculine territory” (Booker 337), which its social and academic history can attest to. Previous scholarship on science fiction has centered the work of a few key male authors, and ignored, with the exception of figures like Atwood, Le Guin, and Butler, large swaths of science fiction by feminist authors like Judith Merril. Within the source material itself, most previous explorations of reproduction have centered male perspectives, highlighting reproduction as a broad …

The Cult Of The Nymphs: Identity, Ritual, And Womanhood In Ancient Greece, Ivana Genov

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Examining archeological and epigraphic evidence in its historical context, in this thesis I explore the Cult of the Nymphs venerated across ancient Greek poleis. I analyze the nymph’s profound cultural and historical impact that is often overlooked in the study of ancient Greece. Nymphs were female deities thought to embody ecological sites, such as fountains and springs, and became fundamental to polis identity. Their locations were often central to city plans, and their faces, depicted on coinage, became representative of the city itself. In the community, nymphs were integral to rituals for major life events, most often in the lives …

Rethinking ‘Feminicide’: The Role Of Organized Crime Groups In Increased Rates Of Feminicide In Mexico, Giselle Figueroa

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Why has feminicide significantly increased in Mexico over the past two decades? Previous feminicide research in Mexico has centered around the idea that the introduction of neoliberal politics changed family structures and increased the vulnerability of women as they entered the workforce. However, this explanation does not fully explain patterns of political violence against women in Mexico. I argue that Mexico’s War on Drugs and the intrinsic patriarchal ideologies and structures of organized crime groups (OCGs) reinforce gender hierarchies and increase the vulnerability of women. To evaluate my argument, I analyze state-level public government data on organized crime and feminicide …

To Have Sex Or Not To Have Sex: An Exploration Of Medieval Christian And Jewish Sexual Values, Rachel Zaslavsky

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis is an exploration of Medieval Jewish and Christian conceptions of sex and aims to challenge the notion of Judeo-Christian values. Medieval Judaism and Christianity are at odds with each other in their understandings of sexuality. By considering Judaism, the belief that medieval religion was averse to sexuality and sexual pleasure is disproven. An analysis of religious works, such as those produced by Christian theologians and Jewish rabbis, yields the following conclusion: medieval Christianity restricted sex on the basis of abstinence, while medieval Judaism restricted sex on the basis of ritual impurity but mandated sex for procreation and female …

Framing The Female Narrative: Male Audiences And Women's Storytelling Within Two Brontë Novels, Sammy Murphy

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Since being published, both Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights have attracted scholarly and critical attention on account of their framed narratives. At the time of publication, some portion of this attention was negative; however, since the early 20th century, scholars have moved towards recognizing and analyzing potential purposes for the narrative structures of both texts. Within my thesis, I enter into this field of scholarship so as to analyze how the frame narrative functions as a tool for both simulation and subversion within the two texts. More specifically, I argue that Emily and …

'Carcern' And 'Wordcræft': Enclosure, Connection And Gender In Cynewulf's "Juliana" And "Elene", Katherine Grotewiel

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The scholarly narrative around monastic enclosure has centered on rigid gender divisions. But Cynewulf's Juliana and Elene reveal a more complex picture. Through images of enclosure, binding and the creation of words, Cynewulf unwinds these restrictive ties of gender in the epilogues of his poems and instead identifies with the figures in these poems not along lines of gender, but in their experiences of enclosure.

Feelings Of Fallenness: Affect And Gender In Victorian Fallen Woman Novels, Kate Kowalski

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A famous poem by Coventry Patmore articulated Victorian expectations for women: to be “the angel in the house.” The woman was the arbiter of morality, spiritual guide and helpmeet, and was worshiped almost as a goddess of purity— and goddesses need no legal protections. Chastity and submission were not only expected, but demanded of Victorian women. After all, these qualities were scientifically inherent in women (to the Victorian mind); the biological imperative of reproduction and maternity rendered women’s bodies a sacred space and prevented their minds from developing as a man’s could.The twin forces of Victorian patriarchal science and religion …

Asking For Forgiveness: Negotiating The Creation Of Memory Through Public Memorialization, Alyssa Castronuovo

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The practice of spatializing culture, or “examining space through theories of embodiment, discourse translocality, and effect,” localizes the global and separates hegemonic narratives of space from how it is actually utilized by the people who interact with it. Setha Low argues that this perspective is especially useful to the anthropologist committed to challenging the discipline’s historically eurocentric approach to studying culture. She writes that a spatial focus “[draws] on the strengths of studying people in situ, producing rich and nuanced sociospatial understandings.” This project began with an interest in theorists such as Edward Soja, Michel de Certeau, and Henri Lefebvre, …

The Bodies Politic: Sex, History, And The Promise Of A Black Queer America, Jonathan Newby

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This essay examines and critiques the ways in which Black, Queer, and Black Queer people's culture, politics, and lived experiences are experienced in the United States, historically and in the present day. The Bodies Politics calls for American history and culture to be reoriented to acknowledge and center the contributions of Black Queer people to the nation.

Dame Ethel Smyth And The Prison: Gender, Sexuality, And The "Bonds Of Self", Mary Shannon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research investigates the use of personal gender and sexuality references in Ethel Smyth’s composition The Prison. Smyth’s last major work, The Prison (1929-1930), is a choral symphony that follows a dialogue between a Prisoner and his Soul as the Prisoner works to understand his own mortality and accept death. This study explores the question: How does Ethel Smyth use intertextuality, the subversion of expectations, and the idea of the “bonds of self” in The Prison to position the work within her gender and sexuality experiences? A focus is placed on the sociolinguistic notions of identity and desire, seeking to …

“Garden-Magic”: Conceptions Of Nature In Edith Wharton’S Fiction, Jonathan Malks

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I situate Edith Wharton’s guiding idea of “garden-magic” at the center of my thesis because Wharton’s fiction shows how a garden space could naturalize otherwise inadmissible behaviors within upper-class society while helping a character tie such behavior to a greater possibility for escape. To this end, Wharton situates gardens as idealized touchstones within the built environment of New York City, spaces where characters believe they can reach self-actualization within a version of nature that is man-made. Actualization, in this sense, stems from a character’s imaginative escape that is enabled by a perception of the garden as a kind of natural …

Engendering Trans Inclusion In Interscholastic And Intercollegiate Athletics: A Critical Analysis Of Sex And Gender In Sports, Title Ix Protections Post-Bostock, And Intersectional Methods Of Antidiscrimination Law, Jack Mackey

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Following the legalization of gay marriage by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and the failure of so-called “bathroom bills” to gain widespread traction across the country, conservative advocacy groups have turned to the arena of locker rooms and school-sponsored sports to pursue legislative and legal action against the inclusion of transgender people in spaces according to their gender identities. This thesis takes up legal challenges presented in Hecox v. Little and Soule v. Connecticut in order to (re)articulate the means by which we understand the language of sex and gender in sports, the protections afforded to trans …

Interrogating Injustice: Carceral Feminism, Brock Turner, And The Dilemmas Of Seeking Accountability For Sexual Violence In Our Prison Nation, Willa Quinn Moffatt

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis uses the 2016 sexual assault case The People vs. Brock Turner to argue that there is no clear path for justice for sexual violence in the current criminal justice system while incarceration remains the primary form of punishment. I draw on court documents and the victim Chanel Miller's 2019 memoir Know My Name to inform my analysis.

I briefly review, as a necessary backdrop, how rape has historically been ignored in the criminal legal system as a serious crime and large-scale social problem and how this history is tied to anti-Black racism in the United States. I am …

Flipping The Castle: Evolution Of Gothic Spaces In The Domestic Sphere, Kate Lucas

Undergraduate Honors Theses

"Flipping the Castle" explores topics of domesticity in Gothic literature over the course of three centuries. The Gothic is a genre with roots in 18th century British literature, but more broadly, it can be described as horror that has a social function, and it is the birthplace of some of the most successful narratives in horror fiction. The aspects of the Gothic this research is concerned with is its themes of unchecked masculine aggression versus repressed femininity, its ability to adapt over time, and its preoccupation with setting, specifically the home, whether that be a medieval castle, a haunted house, …