Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Significance Of The Variation Theory In Cross-Cultural Communication, Yi Wan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Significance of the Variation Theory in Cross-Cultural Communication" Yi Wan analyzes some problems that East-West Comparative Literature, as a discipline, has encountered and discusses the significance of the development of the Variation Theory, proposed by Shunqing Cao. The author aims to explore two important points of this new platform, namely, heterogeneity and variation, and compares this new perspective to the French School, which is based on "influences" and the American School which is based on "analogies." By investigating the variations of literary texts or theories during the course of cross-civilization communication from the perspectives of imagology …

The Futures Of Comparative Literature Envisioned By Chinese Comparatists, Sheng Meng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The Futures of Comparative Literature Envisioned by Chinese Compara­tists" Sheng Meng and Yue Chen discuss the future of Comparative Literature from the perspective of Chinese comparatists. They argue that in response to the latest rhetoric around the crisis and death of Comparative Literature as a discipline, Chinese comparatists have fallen into four major repre­sentative groups. While the first one advocates restoring of international literary relations study of the French School, the second and the third camp see the future of the discipline lying in both the turn to translation and world literature respectively. However, the most ambitious …

Selected Bibliography For The Study Of The "Death" Of The Discipline Of Comparative Literature, Peina Zhuang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Black Australia ‘Writes Back’ To The Literary Traditions Of Empire, Danica Čerče

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

I In her article "Black Australia 'Writes Back' to the Literary Traditions of Empire" Danica Čerče discusses the verse of Australian Indigenous authors Romaine Moreton and Alf Taylor, notable for the overt objection to the institutional and historical processes. These have enabled and maintained the dominant position of those identified as white on the one hand, and the concomitant political, economic, and cultural subordination of Indigenous Australians on the other. Focused on strategies and poetic devices used by the two poets to engage non-Indigenous readers in the experience of their writing, the article examines how the rhetoric of their critique …

Review Of Laura Engel And Elaine Mcgirr, Eds., Stage Mothers: Women, Work, And The Theater, 1660-1830, Kristina Straub

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

Stage Mothers is a collection of essays that complicate the binary between female professional and domestic mother, contributing to theater history and the history of female professionalization and maternity.

Review Of Kathryn E. Davis, Liberty In Jane Austen's Persuasion, Stephanie Russo

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

No abstract provided.

Review Of Heteronormativity In Eighteenth-Century Literature And Culture, Kevin Bourque

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

No abstract provided.

Wwabd? Intersectional Futures In Digital History, Tonya L. Howe

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

WWABD: What would Aphra Behn—world traveler and spy, playwright and poet of scandal, innovator of novelistic forms—do, were she to imagine a future for digital humanities in period-specific scholarship? This essay outlines a vision for the DH section of Aphra Behn Online: An Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830. In particular, I see three important and interrelated places for development: theorizing the feminized labor of digital recovery, editing, and textual preparation; offering thoughtful and feminist approaches to digital pedagogy that are specific to the work we do in the period; and critically assessing the absences in existing …

Highest Form Of Public Scholarship, Cynthia Richards

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

No abstract provided.

Women, Gender And The Arts: Intersections, Differences And Connections, Mona Narain

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

No abstract provided.

What's In A Name? New Vision For Abo, Laura Runge

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

Introduction to the new vision statements for the journal.

Transgressive Acts: Adapting Applied Theatre Techniques For A Transgender Community, Theo F. Lefevre

Masters Theses

This MFA Thesis traces my work as a joker (a la Theatre of the Oppressed) and facilitator through a three-year-long project with a trans applied theatre troupe. The troupe explored several techniques, including Image Theatre, Playback Theatre, storytelling exercises, and somatic movement. In three semester-long workshops, the troupe focused work around three sets of techniques. In the first workshop, the troupe explored the community-based interview process of Undesirable Elements, as designed by Ping Chong in collaboration with Talvin Wilks and Sara Zatz. These techniques were interrogated using queer and trans temporalities. In the second unit, the troupe practiced Augusto …

The Maze Of Shanghai Memory In Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, Biwu Shang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Maze of Shanghai Memory in Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans" Biwu Shang analyzes the memory writing of the novel by combining current memory studies with narratology. The paper pursues three major goals. First, it delves into the maze of Shanghai memory embedded in this novel, which is typically formulated by two contrasting aspects: Christopher Banks's naïve and beautiful childhood memory of Shanghai, and his unhappy adulthood memory of it. Second, it explores how memory plays a dual function of deception and decoration. That is to say, Christopher deliberately uses his memory to create positive …

Curricular Requirements, Critical Traditions, And Adaptation In The Paratext Of Chinese And American School Editions Of Robinson Crusoe, Haifeng Hui

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Curricular Requirements, Critical Traditions, and Adaptation in the Paratext of Chinese and American School Editions of Robinson Crusoe" Haifeng Hui analyses a Chinese new curricular edition and an American common core edition of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to reveal how the paratext can be utilized to reveal different ways of understanding in different educational cultures. He argues that the paratext powerfully exerts the publisher's authority over the text and the reader, thus shaping readers' interpretation of the story in the service of fulfilling specific national curricular needs. The Chinese edition aims more at how Crusoe's story should …

A Comparative Minoritarian Study Of Language Poetry Of Iran And The United States, Sama Khosravi Ooryad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "A Comparative Minoritarian Study of Language Poetry of Iran and the United States" Sama Khosravi Ooryad analyses Language poetry of the United States (1970s) and Language poetry of Iran (1990s) through Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's concepts of minor literature and rhizomic text. The argument of the article is that the two movements, in both their poems and theoretical passages, carry potentialities to be related to Deleuzian concepts. The practice of minor literature, rhizomic text and book as machine is more evident in the works of U.S. language poets. Moreover, Iranian language poetry, while being analyzed alongside …

Opal Clark On Directing Stop Kiss An Exploration Of The Directorial Process, Opal Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this thesis and thesis project was to execute a successful run of the play, Stop Kiss by Diana Son while achieving the playwright’s intended message. Opal Clark directed this production of Stop Kiss at East Tennessee State University under special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc. It was performed to sold out audiences in ETSU Theatre and Dance Studio 205 October 2-7, 2017. The play explores experiences and hostility toward same sex couples, their relationships with one another and how one individual discovers sexuality. The discovery and actualization of the characters’ struggles were communicated in the play …

On The Contrary: Subverting The Canon With Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Christina Pellegrini

Masters Theses

This written portion of my thesis is aimed at documenting and synthesizing how I, as director, staged an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler through ongoing collaboration with a creative team comprised of dramaturges, designers, and actors.

I walk the reader through my exploration of Ibsen’s life and work through travel to the International Ibsen Festival in Oslo, Norway, and describe how I endeavored to lead the production’s creative team by applying feminist theories in directing and embracing the possibility of failure as a means of discovery. I discuss the casting process and establishment of an all-women ensemble, explore the …

Women On Trial: Translating Femininity Through Journalism, William B. Ollayos

Masters Theses

The focus of this thesis is on cultural translation as a means of understanding the relationship between sociocultural identity with respect to bourgeois white female sexuality and interpretations by news journalists, writers and filmmakers. The thesis brings translation scholar Lawrence Venuti’s description of foreign and domestic texts (2008) into conversation with Catherine Cole’s analysis of journalists as active interpreters of newsworthy events (2010) to support my view of the media as a translator of sociocultural identity. The thesis outlines the construction of bourgeois white femininity within the U.S. imaginary and a more detailed account of its direct impact upon journalistic …

The Drama Of Race: Contemporary Afro-German Theater, Jamele Watkins

Doctoral Dissertations

The first investigation of Afro-German theater my dissertation, “The Drama of Race,” argues that Afro-German theater empowers as Black actors take ownership of a German stage, a white German space. My dissertation highlights four crucial Afro-German plays: real life: Germany (2008), Heimat, bittersüße Heimat [Home, bittersweet Home] (2010), Also by Mail (2013), and Mais in Deutschland und anderen Galaxien [Corn in Germany and Other Galaxies] (2015). In Chapter I, I discuss the cultural conditions in which Afro-German theater emerged—after an established literary corpus by Afro-German authors. Chapter II introduces the first Afro-German play and its improvisational methods as empowering for …

From Humiliation To Epiphany: The Role Of Onstage Spaces In T. S. Eliot’S Middle Plays, Ria Banerjee

Publications and Research

This essay looks at T. S. Eliot's major dramatic productions from the 1930s-40s: Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party as a series of investigations into spatial expressions of faith. By using onstage space in unique ways, Eliot encourages audiences to consider the connections between performance and belief, the knowable and unknowable.

Who Tells Our Story: Intersectional Temporalities In Hamilton, An American Musical, Andie Silva, Shereen Inayatulla

Publications and Research

This article examines the ways in which Hamilton: An American Musical can be read less as a historical account and more as a prediction of a future immigrant, who is called upon to (re)define US nationhood. Keeping with the tempo of the musical as well as the broader issues of time, space, and identity it attempts to address, this article is presented as a dialogical rap. The co-authors’ discussion frames Hamilton as an example of the power of unplottable, time-arresting immigrant bodies, to whom the colonial imposition of linear history does not apply. From this framework, the authors’ conversation shifts …

Images Of Women In Refugee Drama: Eve Ensler’S Necessary Targets And Ellen Mclaughlin’S The Trojan Women, Kaitlyn Tossie

Theses and Dissertations

In the past ten years, a critique of the conceptualization of refugees in Western mass media has emerged as a developing discourse in response to post-20th century genocides. Photographs in mass media of wailing refugees began to appear in the early 1990s when reports of the Bosnian genocide appeared in the United States. These images, and the stereotypes that surround them, contribute to the universal depiction of refugees as weak. Though the way in which theatre comments on this conceptualization of refugees has largely been ignored, theatre has a unique ability to comment on, reflect, and create a culture that …

Arabella’S Valentines And Literary Connections [Dot] Com: Playing With Eighteenth-Century Gender Online, Melanie D. Holm

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

This article describes two digital assignments that ask students to imaginatively embody characters from eighteenth-century texts written by women in order to cultivate a greater awareness of the critical role of gender and gender critique in these works. The first of these assignments, “Arabella’s Valentines,” asks students to translate dialogue from Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote as humorous Internet memes. The second assignment, “Literary Connections [dot] com,” asks students to imagine how characters from the course archive might represent themselves on an internet dating site. Through creative role-play facilitated by these digital genres, students engage with the texts in stimulating …

Review Of Ill Composed: Sickness, Gender, And Belief In Early Modern England, Amy Mallory-Kani

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

No abstract provided.

Charlotte Charke’S Gun: Queering Material Culture And Gender Performance, Jade Higa

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

This essay juxtaposes readings of material culture and gender performance in Charlotte Charke’s Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke (1755). It argues that the transient relationship Charke has to the objects in her life mirrors the fluidity of her gender. The essay ultimately uses Charke’s narrative as a case study in a questioning of a binarized gender matrix. The thesis suggest that, though we lack language to fully describe it, characters and historical figures like Charke move beyond and explode gender binaries.

General Editor's Note, Laura Runge

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

No abstract provided.

Restoration Raillery: The Use Of Witty Repartee To Gain Power Within Gendered Spaces Of Restoration London, Bonnie Soper

Madison Historical Review

“Restoration Raillery: The Use of Witty Repartee to Gain Power within Gendered Spaces in Restoration London,” examines the creation of gendered spaces to gain political and social power through the use of satire and wit in poetry, theater, and the court of Charles II in Restoration London. During the Restoration period, mentions of wit and incivility in print and theatre increased over previous eras due to the heightened importance placed on wit as a tool to gain popularity within the court of Charles II. At the same time, witty repartee and well-executed satire provided political power to men within Parliament, …

Acts Of Provocation: Popular Antiracisms On/Through The Twenty-First Century New York Commercial Stage, Stefanie A. Jones

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an abolitionist feminist study of the role of liberalism in the twenty-first century political economy. It takes as its object New York City bourgeois cultural productions (in particular Broadway theatre and the New York Times) from approximately 1984 to 2009. It offers insights into important yet widely-misunderstood features of turn-of-millennium US society: class, art, political practice, and war. In order to understand liberalism’s political and economic agenda, I look at how these objects are pitched in the struggle over racism. Sometimes when we say “liberal” we mean it in the philosophical sense, with particular attention to liberal …

Adoption, Cynical Detachment, And New Age Beliefs In Juno And Kung Fu Panda, Fu-Jen Chen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Adoption, Cynical Detachment, and New Age Beliefs in Juno and Kung Fu Panda" Fu-Jen Chen situates his study within today's prevailing climate of global consumption to argue that the 2007 film Juno—featuring an unconventional portrayal of the adoption triad and a cynical detachment from public values—not only trivializes and depoliticizes the practice of adoption but also serves as an ideological supplement to today's global capitalism. Furthermore, Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2 (2008; 2011) provide two ideological messages of contemporary New Age spirituality—"the belief in nothing" in part I, and "the attitude of inner peace" …

The Representation Of Instinctive Homosexuality And Immoral Narcissism In Gide’S The Immoralist (1902) And Mann’S Death In Venice (1912), Louise Willis

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "The Representation of Instinctive Homosexuality and Immoral Narcissism in Gide’s The Immoralist (1902) and Mann’s Death in Venice (1912)" Louise Willis examines two early literary representations of homosexuality in André Gide's The Immoralist (1902) and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1912). She reads them with fin-de-siècle sexological theory, mainly Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905). Willis argues that the texts reflect the reconception of homosexuality as a latent instinct with pathological expression, rather than a sinful act of free will. The article explains that visual imagery conveys homoerotic desire, by incorporating Nietzsche's concept of …