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Representations Of Domestic Workers In Modern Arabic Fiction, Samaher Aldhamen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I have examined the representations of domestic workers in a number of Arabic mid-century and contemporary novels, using feminism and intersectionality as my overarching framework. I employed several scholarships of feminism such as Marxist and postcolonial feminism to examine the discourse on working-class women. The initial assumption of this study is that there is a noticeable invisibility of domestic workers in Arabic novels. If these characters manage to find their way into a text, they are typically ahistorical figures whose subjectivity is not centered.

Among the Arabic novels I have examined, I found that the tradition of …

The Fascination Of Manga: Cross-Dressing And Gender Performativity In Japanese Media, Sheena Marie Woods

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The performativity of gender through cross-dressing has been a staple in Japanese media throughout the centuries. This thesis engages with the pervasiveness of cross-dressing in popular Japanese media, from the modern shōjo gender-bender genre of manga and anime to the traditional Japanese theatre. Drawing on theories from gender-studies and performance aesthetics to delineate the female gender in traditional Japanese theatre, I follow the roles of, representation of, and media for women, concentrating on (1) manga, a form of sequential art featuring illustrations with corresponding text, (2) anime, animated productions (where the word anime is the abbreviated pronunciation of “animation” in …