Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Shame Of (Be)Longing In Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy, Grace S. Miholic

All Theses

This thesis examines the role of shame in Kincaid's Lucy. Separated into four separate sections, the thesis moves through Lucy’s relationship with her boss, Mariah, her Antiguan mother, and the shame that is identified at the end of the novel. In the introduction, I identify the passage that frames the novel around shame. I then identify my thesis, which centers around Lucy’s shame and her inability and refusal to situate herself with neither Mariah nor her mother’s expectations. The second section of the thesis revolves around Mariah and the form of feminism that skews her perception and expectations of …

A Bishnoi Woman’S Odhani: Gendered Labor, Environmental Ethics, And Textile Traditions In Rajasthan, Nidhi Patel

Department of Anthropology

This report examines an embroidered odhani (woman’s shawl) attributed to a Bishnoi artisan from Rajasthan, India. The odhani is housed in the May Weber Ethnographic Study Collection at Loyola University Chicago. Close analysis of technique and contextual evidence is used to reattribute the textile, which was originally mislabeled and situates it within the contexts of gendered labor and environmental ethics within the Bishnoi community. Utilizing the frameworks of materialist and eco-spiritual feminism, the report argues that the odhani functions as a site of ecological resistance, cultural transmission, and women’s embodied knowledge, as well as a garment.

Divine Ecstasy And Erotic Submission: Pauline Réage’S Story Of O And The Medieval Mysticism Of Mechthild Of Magdeburg And Margery Kempe, Lauren A. Crawford

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the thematic and conceptual intersections between Pauline Réage’s Story of O and the medieval mystical writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg and Margery Kempe, focusing on the intertwined dynamics of divine ecstasy and erotic submission. By analyzing the textual representations of bodily suffering, erotic desire, and female submission, this study argues that Story of O—a modern work of literary erotica—engages with a mystical-erotic tradition that echoes the visions and devotional experiences of medieval women mystics. Through close readings, this project examines how both Réage’s protagonist and medieval mystics navigate the paradox of submission as a pathway to …

Influence Of Neo-Colonial Relationships On The Gender Norms Of The Pacific Islands, Katelynn N. Nicholas

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The intersection between domestic violence and formerly colonized countries has long drawn the attention of scholars and researchers. Many of the Pacific Islands are known for their low Human Development Index scores. Because of their treatment of women, they also often have very low Gender Development Index scores. The understanding that there will be no receipts after the exchange of a human being, usually a child, has encouraged British men to seek out sex work in Thailand. Arguably domestic violence and colonization fully overlap in the sexual objectification of ethnic groups in Oceania and the woman there who fall into …

“Re-Storying” Anne Shirley And The Adhd Child: A Crip Genealogy Of Anne Of Green Gables, Darian Aleyna Wilson

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the contested nature of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), focusing on its cultural and historical constructions. While ADHD has been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders since 1980, its legitimacy remains a subject of debate across medical, disability studies, and historical scholarship. Using Eli Clare’s critique of diagnosis as a tool rather than a fact, this project examines how ADHD is both pathologized and re-storied within societal and medical discourses. It highlights the tension between medical classifications and lived experiences of those diagnosed with ADHD, particularly in the context of girlhood.

The central …

Untethered And Unraveled: Isolated Motherhood In The Liminal Stage, Ashton K. Wronikowski

All Theses

In examining Kate Chopin’s The Awakening alongside anthropologic theories of liminality, this paper examines the becoming women traverse as they transition between various social roles: girl, woman, mother. Edna is a maternal character attempting to unweave herself from her roles as mother and wife, and she finds this desire to go backwards to the freedom she experienced as a girl is proven to be impossible. The unmooring of her psyche and her subsequent suicide is indicative of a failure, not of her own accord, but in the social preparation and support she receives within her new identity. Social anthropologists further …

Odd Girls, Pulp Fiction And Lesbians, Natalie Aronson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

1957’s Odd Girl Out, a novel written by Ann Bannon, reminds readers, past, present and future, of the ever-growing need for positive queer representation. This project’s main goal is to take a look at the genre of Pulp Fiction novels of the 1950s, and examine how queer representation – specifically lesbian representation – has been written. Paul Thompson’s Masculinity in Lesbian “Pulp” Fiction is a text I use throughout, as it not only examines the genre overall, but also delves into Bannon’s ever-growing impact, providing much-needed context for the novels. While the genre of Pulp Fiction novels, queer or not, …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

The Masc Of Masculinity: Multimodal Analysis Of Contemporary Punk Music, James L. Stanfield Iii

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis establishes a multi-genre framework of various theories from different academic fields that is then used to view the multimodal elements of punk and hardcore music performances. The analyses are tailored towards the dissection of traditional masculinity with the goal of constructing masculine avatars that are prosocial and moral. Reworking traditional masculinity is a portion of the larger fight for social reform that is taken up within the field of the humanities. Existing critical approaches to masculinity often establish the need for a rewriting of normative masculinity in society but often do not provide methods for such a rewriting. …

Queer Hope And Asexual Desire In Nella Larsen's Passing And Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse, Jeremy Buckner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

This project examines Nella Larsen’s Passing and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse together as queer artifacts in hopes of shedding new light on how race and sexuality can be reexamined across national modes of thinking. Although these writers’ backgrounds provide them with different bodies of knowledge, Larsen’s Irene and Woolf’s Lily have much more in common than might first appear. For one, even if racialization is more explicit—and presents more of an obstacle—for Irene, race is an important factor for both characters. Additionally, Irene and Lily both express profound discontent with marriage, Irene in her marriage to Brian and Lily …

Internalisasi Misogini: Kekerasan Seksual Sebagai Senjata Perang, Umanitya Fitri Hanryana, Lg. Saraswati Putri

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This study examines the role of internalized misogyny in sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Misogyny in patriarchal cultures fosters hatred towards women, facilitating sexual violence in armed conflicts. Cases in the Congo, Rwanda, Ukraine, and Yugoslavia demonstrate how sexual violence is systematically employed to demean and destroy women. Through a feminist critical approach and qualitative analysis, this research reveals that sexual violence in war is often not recognized as a weapon of war due to the inferior position of women in patriarchal societies, being merely seen as ordinary crimes despite being systematic and structured human rights violations. …

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …

Gender Myths & Colonial Lies, Sophie Camilleri

Honors Papers and Posters

The gender binary is deeply ingrained in today's society, despite a general lack of knowledge on where this system originates from. It is crucial to counter misinformation stemming from propaganda and fear campaigns surrounding the gender binary. This research sheds light on the oppressive roots of gender, as well as its role in the colonization of marginalized individuals around the globe. This paper will make connections to present day systems of oppression and the long-term effects of colonization on Black and Hispanic women.

Celibacy, Or Death, Ari I. Stanley

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

No abstract provided.

He Said, She Said: Deconstructing Gender In Our Own World Through Our Own Languages, William K. Coulthard

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Both language and gender are social constructs which we humans have created to produce an order to the world, and this essay illustrates the ways in which language influences both our perceptions of gender and the world of people who subvert so-called natural gender norms. Because gender, unlike sex, is a social construct to which we ascribe particular images and words, language can affect not only the identity of the person in question but also their relationships, careers, and societal attitudes toward gender. Ursula Le Guin, in her 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, deconstructs our earthly …

Painting The Other: Mary Cassatt's Spanish Portraits And The Feminine Gaze, Delaney Batter

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The historical viewing of women artists, in conjunction with Mary Cassatt’s biography and later depictions of women and children, suggests that Cassatt's gender is identified within the art historical canon as an essential component to the interpretation of her work. The language attached to Cassatt's work is most often taken from discourses surrounding female-produced artwork of the nineteenth century, attaching passive and stereotypically feminine attributes like 'delicate,' 'light,' and 'tender' to the style, composition, and subjects of her works. These characteristics were among the accepted nineteenth-century descriptions of artworks, with inherent femininity translating to inherent domesticity.

Rather than further reducing …

Deconstructing Ancient Allegories: Eleanor Antin’S 'Historical Takes' On Subverting Classical Motifs And Typologies, Lainey Tomasoski

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

The New York-born artist Eleanor Antin erupted into the male-dominated American conceptual photography art scene in the 1960s and 70s with feminist works that reimagined the female body in terms of representation and history. In congruence with the feminist and civil rights movements, conceptual photography represented a shift in how art was utilized to criticize the social and political institutions in which it is rooted. Antin and other feminist artists engaging in conceptual photography and video played with the embodiment of characters, performance of the body, and an intrinsic “self-reflexivity” of subject, viewer, and artist. However, Antin pivoted her work …

Uncovering Artemisia: Turning Rage Into Fame, Sophie Longo

Undergraduate Theses in Art History

During the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries in Italy - more commonly known as the Italian Renaissance and early Baroque periods - masters like Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio made a name for themselves and secured legacies through the widespread popularity and study of their masterpieces. As time progressed, however, more artworks have been found, and more histories, especially by women Baroque artists, have been explored. With the rise of women’s rights movements and social justice campaigns from the mid-20th century on, stories of female artists and figures have further emerged from the woodwork and hold greater precedence in …

For The Birds, Charlotte L. Middleton

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

For the Birds is a homogenous material exhibition of porcelain pottery that explores the relationships between, expectations of, and roles placed upon women and pottery. Using traditional craft processes, still life imagery, and the language and limits of porcelain, I create arrangements that expose the viewers assumptions of both subjects. Pottery- pitchers, cups, and vases—is a product of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism and can be entirely taken for granted- their role is assumed and unquestionable—to serve. The language and expectations of these objects are the medium I build with.

The title of the show, For the Birds, is both a …

Los Muxes De Juchitán: Resistance, Identity, And Expressions Of Gender In The Zapotec Culture, Leah Mack

Audre Lorde Prize

This work is a cultural analysis of the Indigenous Zapotec third-gender community in Juchitán, México called the muxes. It examines the historical context that explains how the muxes have survived the process of Spanish colonization: a history of resistance and pride in their Indigenous identities. This essay also explains the European norms of the gender binary and how the norms in Juchitán are different and unique. Then, it analyzes a few cultural spaces that are important to the Zapotec Indigenous identity and the gender identity of the muxes, such as the market and the festive celebrations known as Las Velas. …