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

Writing, Performance, Resistance: Examining Feminist Ideology And Theory In Theatre Since The Second Wave, Olivia Cross

Theater Honors Papers

This project seeks to identify and analyze how feminist theatre is informed by theory and activism in its resistance against white, heteronormative, and patriarchal hegemony offstage through onstage representation. By identifying three consistent themes of gender & sexuality, race, and trauma and the methods used to effectively convey them to an audience, feminist theatre displays how advocacy takes unique forms to uproot the status quo. Furthermore, this research highlights how theatre is a viable and rich outlet for feminist intellectual history, displaying its versatility as a frame of analysis.

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.

"Rainbow Is The Way To Go" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Rainbow is the Way to Go!"

Multicolored marker on white posterboard.

"Thou Shalt Not Eat Clams" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Guess What... The Bible Also Says: 'Thou Shalt Not Eat Clams' )do you eat clams, Mr. Phelps?) What Now?

Black marker on white psterboard.

The "Mr. Phelps" referenced in the text is likely Fred Phelps (1929-2014), former pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church.

"We Are A Land Of Many Colors" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "We Are A Land of Many Colors America the Beautiful"

Multicolored marker on white background. Rainbow details.

Gsta "Crest" Poster, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Poster created by Betsy Parsons for conference, workshop, or training. Poster feature a drawing of a crest divided into four quadrants, with each listing goals, positive affirmations, and well-known public figures.

Multicolored marker on posterboard.

"Never Be Ashamed Of Love" Poster, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Poster created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Never Be Ashamed of Love".

Black and multicolored marker on white posterboard.

"Proud Lesbian Teacher" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign carried by Betsy Parsons for a march or demonstration. Text reads: "Proud Lesbian Teacher 30 (x29) Years ~Portland Public Schools~.

Hand-painted, purple, red, and blue paint (likely acrylic or tempera) on white poster board.

:Anti-Gay Discrimination Is Illegal..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for protest or march. Text reads "Anti-Gay Discrimination is Illegal in Maine Schools and Universities".

Handpainted. Blue and red paint, likely acrylic or tempera on white poster board.

"Trans Gay-Straight Alliance..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for march or demonstration. Text reads: "Trans Gay-Straight Alliances: Youth Leading for Equality".

Red and black text with a rainbow in the background. Acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

"Proud Glbt Students + Teachers" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Proud GLBT Students and Teachers".

Black text with rainbow-colored hand prints. Acrylic or tempera on posterboars. GLSEN bumper sticker.

"Equality" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march.

Text reads "EQUALITY"

Black text on red posterboard.

"Free To Learn..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Free to Learn Teach LEad".

Green, red, purple, and black text on white background with a rainbow. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

Safe Schools For All" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "GLSEN Safe Schools for All".

Black and rainbow text on white background with GLSEN bumper sticker. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

"Glsen" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for event. Text reads: "GLSEN Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network

Black text on yellow background. Acrylic or tempera on poster board.

"Gsta Youth Testimony" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: " GSTA Youth Testimony Helped Protect the Maine Human Rights Act".

Black, red, green, and blue text on white background. Acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

"Love Is Compassion..." Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "Love is Compassion Love is Caring Love is Beautiful Love is Love"

Pastel marker on white background.

"Safe Schools For Glbt People" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads: "GLSEN Safe SChools for GLBT People".

Black and red text on white background. GLSEN bumper sticker.

"We Are All In This Together" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for demonstration or march. Text reads "We Are All In This Together" in several languages.

"Proud Gay Student" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created for march or demonstration. Text reads: " Proud Son Christian Student Gay". Note, the word "Gay" is written vertically next to "son", "Christian" and "Student".

Acrylic paint on white background.

"Trans Students Are Everywhere" Sign, Betsy Parsons

Betsy Parsons Collection

Sign created by Betsy Parsons for protest or march. Text reads "Trans Students Are Everywhere".

Handpainted rainbow text, likely acrylic or tempera on posterboard.

Art And Aids: Viral Strategies For Visibility, Stephen Baylor Pillow

Honors Theses

“Art & AIDS: Viral Strategies for Visibility” examines the complex relationships between social stigma, healthcare, homophobia, and mortality, and how these impacted the lives of Western artists and manifested in their works. Most of the art discussed in this thesis was produced during the height of the AIDS crisis (late-1980s to mid-1990s). During this period, gay artists and their allies employed new strategies in their work to inspire activism, and convey intense emotions –– predominantly frustration, grief, and anxiety –– associated with HIV/AIDS. In the U.S., the inaction of the Reagan administration was largely due to widespread homophobia kindled by …

Grief Work With The Philly Death Doula Collective: An Oral History Project, Leo L. Williams

Oral Histories HIST300, Spring 2021

On March 25th, 2021 a Master’s student in American Studies (Leo Williams) at the University of New Mexico met with the Philly Death Doula Collective over Zoom. The current members of the collective are Lori Zaspel, Kai Wonder, and Nicki Cowan, social workers, and Death Doulas living in Philadelphia. In this oral history interview, the collective speaks to their vision of death care infrastructure, their goals and services as a collective, how COVID-19 has affected them, and their relationship to death positive activism.

History, Activism, Erasure: Archival Paradox As Institutional Practice, Sarah H. Salter

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This essay connects the reparative assemblages of queer archiving practice to growing conversations in university studies. Tracing the fraught legal history of Penn State University’s first “Homophile” association in the 1970s, this essay theorizes how university records—and the processes of recording they index—participate in the creation of institutional identity and help establish institutional relations with their communities. Ultimately, it suggests that archivists and librarians act as mediators, unintentionally or purposefully, of the relations between vulnerable communities and the structures of power in which they are embedded.

The Space Between “Seen” And “Unseen:” Queer People And The 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance, Claudia R. Campanella

Dissertations and Theses

In November 1926, a group of Black artists, writers, and activists created the first and only edition of Fire!!, edited by novelist Wallace Thurman. Fire!! was created by a younger generation of New Negroes and “devoted to the younger Negro artists” who dissented from the mainstream ideas of the New Negro Movement and used the magazine to spread their own views on the 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance. Fire!! and other texts speaking to this dissent against a Black intellectual middle class image of the movement will be studied in reference to showcasing the multi-faceted elements of the movement touching …

Through The Mouth: An Essay On Appetite And Ecocide, Iemanja Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an exploration of mourning and resilient joy in the midst of ecocide. Resisting the pervasive classification of the human as inherently destructive, I look to appetite as an aesthetic procedure that includes a material desire for intimacy with the more-than-human. My study considers the intersections of aesthetic production (primarily twentieth-century poetry and visual art), climate science, geology, cultural studies, theory within the contemporary nonhuman turn, and Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. I employ an interdisciplinary approach, which helps me explore the various ways that literal and figurative appetite can be a way of sensing and exploring …

Licentious Legends: A Folklore Podcast, Alexandra L. Haynes

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Licentious Legends was created out of a need to both understand and educate about sexual contemporary legends; not just what they are and what defines them, but the effect that they have on those who experience them. The purpose of this podcast is not to shame, but to take what has been found and educate about the joys and dangers of these legends. These legends range from the everyday (such as "The Hook"), to legends about a young man killing himself with a plunger. In an effort to gather as many examples as they could, Faye interviewed several of their …

Bound To Rise, Morgan P. H. Bielawski

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Bound to Rise is a collection of short stories about people who discover themselves in the “fine drizzly rain” (or smirr, in Scottish lingo) of everyday life. They orient themselves and find some way forward, or they realize they have to. Thematically, it addresses a carnival (the carnivalesque), a demolition derby, multiple fires, photography, drinking, music, an eating disorder, and a birthday cake. It includes one original children’s story written in Russian and translated into English by the author.

From The Church Of Disco To Waterfront Ruins: An Analysis Of Gay Space, Liam Nolan

Senior Projects Spring 2019

My senior thesis is an analysis of gay space from the late 1970s to 1980s New York, and I’m questioning how themes of private vs. public, accessibility, race, and economic status dictated where one searched for gay self-expression and community in the built environment. In order to understand how queer spaces functioned architecturally and socially, I’ve chosen to research two opposites: The Saint and the west side piers. The former was a private club in New York City from 1980-1988 and was considered to be the “Vatican of Disco” with a planetarium that could hold over a thousand men, two …

Toward Culturally Competent Archival (Re)Description Of Marginalized Histories, Annie Tang, Dorothy Berry, Kelly Bolding, Rachel E. Winston

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Influenced by the radical archives movement, panelists discuss their (re)processing projects for which they wrote or rewrote descriptions in culturally competent approaches. Their case studies include materials regarding underrepresented peoples and historically oppressed groups who are marginalized from or maligned in the archival record. Targeted to processors, this session aims to teach participants to apply their cultural competencies in writing finding aids through an introduction to cultural competency framework, the case study examples, and a short audience-participation exercise.