Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons^™

Gay For English: Postcolonial In(Queer)Ies Into Contemporary Hindi Cinema, Hardik R. Yadav

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, I study four recent Hindi-language Indian films for what I see as their queering of the English language, and, in turn, putting the Indian entity at a distance from both language and sexual orientation. The nation-making project of the Hindu political right in India today seeks an identity in distance from the English language: closer to the age-old conception of India as Hindustan (place of the Hindus). In Part I, I explore how such a resistance to English allows for the “Indian” within male protagonists of Rajat Kapoor’s Ankhon Dekhi (2013) and Aanand L. Rai’s Raanjhanaa (2013) …

Tale As Old As...Feminism? The (Re)Making Of Beauty And The Beast, Cara Doreen Hardman

Theses - ALL

In this thesis, I investigate Disney's positioning of the live-action Beauty and the Beast as feminist. Up to this point, Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast has both been hailed as presenting audiences with an empowered princess and criticized for the Beast's aggressive behavior and the positioning of Belle as a woman meant to propel the Beast's story forward. I provide an assessment of the gender politics depicted in Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast, and I problematize the tendency to classify texts as either entirely feminist or utterly antifeminist. As a whole, this thesis provides an in-depth analysis of …

Fractured Selves, Gearoid Dolan

Theses and Dissertations

Fractured Selves is a self-portrait that examines the histories and points of conflation and diversion of my four public personas. In the style of a Zoom meeting, they chat with a host against animated backgrounds. Interactivity creates non-linear consuming of the content and user directed navigation through four timelines

Space-Praxis: Towards A Feminist Politics Of Design, Mary C. Overholt

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Outside of the academy and professionalized practice, design has long been central to the production of feminist, political projects. Taking what I have termed space-praxis as its central analytic, this project explores a suite of feminist interventions into the built environment—ranging from the late 1960s to present day.

Formulated in response to Michel de Certeau’s theory of spatial practices, space-praxis collapses formerly bifurcated definitions of ‘tactic’/‘strategy’ and ‘theory’/‘practice.’ It gestures towards those unruly, situated undertakings that are embedded in an ever-evolving, liberative politics. In turning outwards, away from the so-called masters of architecture, this thesis orients itself toward everyday practitioners …

“A Space Where You Can Imagine In”: Queer World Building With Wynne Greenwood’S Tracy + The Plastics, Colleen M. O'Shea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tracy and the Plastics was a video and music project conceived and performed by artist Wynne Greenwood from 1999 - 2006. In it, Greenwood played lead singer Tracy alongside keyboard player, Nikki and drummer, Cola (both also played by Greenwood) where Tracy performed live alongside prerecorded images of Nikki and Cola. For Greenwood, the interaction between Tracy, the Plastics, and the audience provided an opportunity to create new, intentional worlds together. In this paper, I will demonstrate that Greenwood relies on collisions and alternative temporalities to instigate the creation of these worlds with her audience. I will incorporate the principles …

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …

Through Their Eyes: An Analysis Of Misrepresentation In Popular Lesbian Television Narratives, Delana Janine Price

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this thesis is to explore lesbian television narratives that shape popular discourse. My goal is to find and expose the implications of monolithic expressions of queerness through both queer and heteronormative presenting television narratives. This exploration of the queer narrative voice addresses three distinct movements of cultural production: the proclaimed self-represented queer television narrative, the connotatively queer heterocentric television narrative, and the queer narrative produced in fan-based literature. For concision, I focus on the popular television dramas The L Word and Rizzoli & Isles, as well as the fan works produced for the latter. Through the lens …