Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Using Queer Of Color Theory To Analyze Latinidad, Maria I. Castro-Mendoza

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

Queer of Color Theory (QOCT) has emerged as a new field of study with the rise of LGBTQ+ visibility in the modern day political landscape. QOCT is an extended analysis of queer theory that explicitly and intentionally takes into account race, imperialism, and colonialism. Queer of color theory can be used to create or expand upon an already existing theory, and has roots in Black feminism. Using queer of color theory as a method of analysis, this essay discusses the black and indigenous erasure within the Latinidad movement and seeks to examine those who have been systemically left out of …

The Sea Calls: A Selkie's Liminal Existence, Frances Avery

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

Traditionally, the selkies (or seal people) of Scottish-Irish lore exist between spaces: the land and the sea, human and animal, childbearing and childless. Their existence at sea is voluntary but their existence on land is forced. Once the selkie has left behind its sealskin and both the literal and metaphorical sealskin has been stolen, the selkie becomes subject to human will. The lenses of body, reclamation, violation, and abuse prove that the reason why selkies have faded from popularity is because the lessons are too mature for a young audience. A feminist and queer reading and interpretation of this traditional …

The (In)Visible Woman: A Performative Autoethnographic Exploration Of Queer Femme-Ininity And Queer Isolation, Bri Ozalas

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis is a performative autoethnographic exploration of my experiences existing betwixt-and-between the intersection of queer femme-ininity and isolation. Through a creative, affective rendition of my experiences, I detail and connect the nuances of queerness, femme-ininity, and queer isolation to provide a closer look at understanding queer identity with an absence of connection to the queer community. First, I provide an overview of the main theoretical and methodological approaches, and main concepts I utilize throughout my project. I then provide the intricacies of queer theory, queer intersectionality, and affect theory to provide theoretical explanations of my approach to queer isolation. …

Looking Beyond Binaries To Avoid Polarization In The Sex Work Debate, Laura Keenan

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper considers both sides of the debate surrounding sex work--the argument for criminalizing sex work and the contention for legalizing sex work--in relationship to policies aimed at combating sex-trafficking in America as well as globally. A queer theory concept of recognizing and removing linguistically created binaries is applied to this debate to offer a more productive perspective on the matter.

Performing (Female) Masculinity In The Early Modern Ibero-Atlantic World: An Analysis Of The Mujer Varonil In Gender And Genre, Nathaniel L. Redekopp

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

The following dissertation on the trope of the mujer varonil^[1] employs bibliographical research in literary criticism and historiography to identify and describe socio-historic attitudes about gender. In particular, this dissertation examines gender as communicated by texts that use the mujer varonil, or “masculine woman”, characterization to either praise or vilify exceptional female subjects in ways that highlight normative limits for masculine and feminine gender expression. Four texts are examined: a male author writes each and each represents a literary genre that was significant in early modern Spain and Spanish America. These genres are the hagiography, the relación, the …

Homonationalism: From Critique To Diagnosis, Or, We Are All Homonational Now, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

My, Is That Cyborg A Little Bit Queer?, Esperanza Miyake

Journal of International Women's Studies

This piece of work is a response to the following question: ‘Critically assess the importance, or otherwise, of Donna Haraway’s “manifesto” for early twenty-first century feminists’. Based on Stein and Plummer’s outline of queer theory in their essay, “I can’t even think straight”: “Queer” Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology (Stein and Plummer 1996). This piece compares and contrasts different aspects of queer theory (sociological, ideological, political and ontological) with Haraway’s ‘manifesto’ in order to investigate the possibilities of a cyberqueer theory: to ‘queer’ (as a verb) the ‘cyborg’. Whilst attempting to interrelate both the notion of the …