Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Exploring The Rhetorical Power Of Speculative Fiction Through Jewelle Gomez’S The Gilda Stories And Octavia Butler’S Fledgling, Monique Dixon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

There are apparent similarities between Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories and Octavia Butler’s Fledgling. However, this thesis will demonstrate that they share more than similar subject matter and yet differ in substantial ways. Utilizing Black feminist theory and alternative rhetoric this thesis examines how Gomez and Butler harness the potential of speculative fiction to critique the world around them and imagine an alternative world for those who are intersectionally marginalized.

Graduate School Awareness For First-Generation Latinas: Cracking The Glass Ceiling - A Validation Study, Deborah D. Grijalva

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

At this time, the Latinx population is the fastest-growing population in the United States. Latinas account for one in five women in the United States, and by 2060 Latinas will likely make up one-third of the nation’s females. Education is the foundation for both personal and economic well-being, especially as the job market continues to demand higher levels of educational attainment. The Latinx population continues to make up a large portion of the workforce. Latinas’ attendance and admission rates at the graduate level are low. Studies have found that Latinas have obtained the lowest percentage of graduate degrees compared to …

The Greenville Investigation: Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women And Boarding School Runaways, Kate Mook

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Indian boarding schools were created by the United States government in the nineteenth century in order to “civilize” and assimilate American Indians. In this research, I utilize public information regarding the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) crisis in the United States as well as primary documents from a report by Special Agent Lafayette Dorrington of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Dorrington investigated the case of five American Indian girls who ran away from the Greenville Indian Industrial School in 1916.

I will refer to the documents as “The Greenville Investigation” instead of Dorrington’s title- “The Greenville Desertion” - …

Depressed & Dis-Eased: Storytelling, Melancholia And The Rhetorical Affordances Of Affect, Carlee Franklin

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Because racial oppression is often internalized, this thesis examines literature written by POC about protagonists of color struggling with depression. The pieces are Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Haruki Murakami’s “Tony Takitani,” and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Using literary concepts informed by Black feminist theory, decolonial theory, and affect studies, as well as rhetorical frameworks of silence and listening, this thesis attempts to better understand how the relationship between depression and racial oppression work to color the life expectancy and perspectives of depressed people of color