From Motherhood To Sisterhood: Women Strike For Peace And The Transmission Of Feminist Consciousness, Olivia R. Aldrich

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Women Strike for Peace (WSP) has traditionally been understood as a maternalist peace movement that emerged in response to atmospheric nuclear testing during the early Cold War era. This thesis argues that WSP’s history reveals a more nuanced relationship between motherhood, feminism, and political activism than existing scholarship has suggested. Rather than operating in distinct stages, maternalism and feminism operated simultaneously, working alongside one another throughout the organization’s history. Furthermore, this thesis builds upon Ednie Kaeh Garrison’s concept of feminist “radio waves,” arguing that WSP functioned as a transmitter of feminist consciousness, where ideas, organizational practices, and different political identities …

It's All The Same, Lauren A. Bedevia

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

It’s All the Same is a collection of short stories that center around lesbian characters. The stories explore themes such as ambition, morality, karma, mental health, exploitation, and relationships. The collection opens with “Forget Her Inc.,” a short story that juggles an ensemble cast of lesbians and examines whether memory eraser therapy is an ethical practice for treating a broken heart. “It’s All the Same,” the titular story, uses lyricism to present the parallels between two women in terms of family dynamics, interests, and attachment styles; the story explores a loving friendship between a lesbian and a straight woman.

“Fun …

Taming Wildfires, Bianca Dagostino

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Taming Wildfires is a novella immersed in the mind of a young woman named Lilla with intense, undiagnosed mental illness attempting to reenter society after losing the crutch of her long-term partner. The novella engages with the intersection of queerness, mental illness, interracial relationships, and the society of recent past (2023-2024), and deals with themes of isolation, loss, self-image, and emotional healing. Readers are invited fully into Lilla’s mind as she navigates a long-term friendship strained by proximity and a new romance marred by omission. These relationships are overcast by her loss, her skewed reality, and her conflicting desires to …

The Revelations, Lily Mckenna

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

The Revelations is a self-actualization in the form of a poetry collection. The speaker’s realization that reality is relative arrives through a Title IX case against an abusive boyfriend and former bandmate. Poems such as “Complainant / Respondent” use rigid legal structures to investigate the fluidity of truth and perception and how they can be manipulated. With her band on hiatus and the case propelling her into a new world, the speaker starts running DIY shows alongside a cast of characters with a shared love of music. She interrogates their realities in the character studies “On The Relative Reality Of…,” …

Digital Technology And Women’S Health In Nigeria: A Feminist Sts Walkthrough Analysis Of Mdoc Digital Health, Edith Michael Ogbodo

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This thesis critically examines how a Nigerian digital health platform, mDoc, represents and constructs women’s health. Drawing on Feminist Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Light et al.’s (2018) walkthrough method, the study interrogates the values, assumptions, and power relations embedded in mDoc’s design, language, and governance structures. The analysis reveals that mDoc, despite positioning itself as an equitable solution to Nigeria’s health crisis, reproduces and depoliticizes the structural inequalities it claims to address. Through its neoliberal emphasis on self-care, the individualization of structurally produced suffering, and the datafication of women’s bodies, the platform encodes gendered, colonial, and class-based assumptions …

The Paradox Of Matriliny: Cultural Authority And The Political Marginalization Of Women In Meghalaya, Kasturi Bharadwaj

Journal of International Women's Studies

The global discourse on gender equality gained momentum after the 1975 United Nations World Conference on Women. It continued through a series of international initiatives and culminated in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which emphasized women’s rights and their participation in political, social, and economic life. Despite these normative commitments at the international level, women’s political participation and representation within administrative and decision-making structures continue to be uneven, limited, and structurally constrained across many societies. In this context, the study investigates the political participation and representation of women in Meghalaya, a tribal state in Northeast India characterized by …

The Un-Bridged Pipeline: Leading And Preparing Women Of Color To Senior-Level Higher Education Administration, Jacqueline D. Slater

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite increased educational attainment among Black women, representation in senior‑level leadership positions within higher education remains limited. This qualitative study examines the experiences of Black women who serve or have served in senior‑level academic administrative roles and explores how those experiences inform guidance, preparation, and decision‑making for future Black women leaders. The study focuses on practical barriers, workplace realities, and strategies that shape leadership entry, advancement, and retention.

Using a descriptive case study design, five Black women with professional experience as presidents, provosts, vice provosts, and academic deans participated in semi‑structured interviews lasting 45 to 75 minutes. Purposeful sampling ensured …

Iberoamerican Neomedievalisms: “The Middle Ages” And Its Uses In Latin America, Edited By Nadia R. Altschul And Maria Ruhlmann, Emily Francomano

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Women And Magic In Medieval Romance: Genre, Intertextuality, And Power, By Jane Bonsall, Melissa Elmes

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

White Before Whiteness In The Late Middle Ages, By Wan-Chuan Kao, Thelma Trujillo

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Chaucer And Becket’S Mother: “The Man Of Law’S Tale,” Conversion, And Race In The Middle Ages, By Meriem Pagès, Daisy E. Black

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Eleanor Of Aquitaine, As It Was Said: Truth And Tales About The Medieval Queen, By Karen Sullivan, Lauren Wood

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Intersections Of Gender And Genres In Medieval Judaism, Christianity, And Islam, Linda G. Jones

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The introductory essay describes the aims of this special volume, which are to analyze the intersections between religion and gender in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures, as reflected in diverse pre- and early modern textual genres, and to explore the relationships between gender and genres. Toward these ends the authors interrogate how a given textual genre, as well as the gender of the author/compiler and the intended audience, might influence the representations of gender. The introductory essay summarizes the seven articles constituting the volume, highlights the points of contact and differences among them, and reflects upon their broader significance to …

“Be Only A Man": Authority, Dependency, And Masculinity In Geniza Letters Of Mothers To Their Sons, Oded Zinger

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

One of the most exciting discoveries among the Cairo Geniza, a rich trove of ancient manuscripts discovered in the Ben Ezra Synagogue at Fustat (Old Cairo), is women’s letters. Up until the early modern period, we have no text written by a Jewish woman preserved in traditional channels of transmission—that is, manuscripts copied by scribes and preserved in libraries or personal collections. Yet the Geniza documents preserve over two hundred letters written by women in different languages and spanning several centuries. Twenty-nine of these letters are from mothers to sons. Letters from mothers to sons have some distinctive characteristics when …

The Masculinization Of Grief In Arabic Adab Literature: Ibn ‘Abd Al-Rabbih’S Al-‘Iqd Al-Farīd, Linda G. Jones

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article explores the relationship between masculinity and literary expressions of grief in premodern Islamic cultures based on “The Book on Women Mourners, Condolences, and Elegies,” from the adab anthology, al- ‘Iqd al-farīd (The Unique Necklace), compiled by the Cordovan belletrist Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih (d. 940). While Ibn ‘Abd Rabbih’s selection of literary specimens by female authors has been studied in depth, the far more numerous examples of male-authored bereavement literature have not been analyzed in detail. Hence this article has two aims. First, it will examine the relatively neglected genres of Arab-Islamic bereavement literature featuring grieving …

Gender And Genres In The Ādāb-I Menāzil, Özgen Felek

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Gender and gender roles routinely appear across different genres of Islamic literature. Since each genre’s handling of the subject of gender is evaluated within the borders of that genre, studies in the field have been based on specific texts or genres. The Ādāb-ı menāzil (“Manners of the Household”), written by ʿAbdü’l-Laṭīf ibn-i Ṭurmış Ḳaramānī (d. 1516), is a unique Ottoman Turkish text that brings together the perspectives of different genres. It is a book of morals, advice, and religious knowledge written for women, as Ḳaramānī explicitly declares in the preface. The work includes Qur’anic verses, hadiths, stories, and legends …

Gender And Historiography In The Construction Of The Image Of King John And Queen Violant Of Aragon, Oriol Catalán

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The reign of John I of Aragon (r. 1387–1396) and his second wife Violant de Bar has been often denigrated by Catalan historiography with political arguments but also because of ensuing gender debates associating the shortcomings of his reign with his supposed manly weakness. This article deconstructs both political and gendered representations of the Aragonese monarchs by distinguishing what is reasonably attributable to them from accusations motivated by the conflicts of the time and later contexts. Drawing upon the concepts of “hegemonic masculinity” and “multiple masculinities,” the article compares the gender representations of King John I and Queen Violant in …

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 61.2 (2026)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Conversion And The Reconfiguration Of Religious Gender Roles: Conversas And Moriscas In Late Medieval Iberia, Ivana Arsić

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This study addresses the impact of the cultural homogenization policy in late medieval Castilian and Aragonese societies by analyzing Spanish Inquisition documents through a gendered lens. Specifically, this article illustrates how these records depict the religious experiences of Conversas and Moriscas (Christian women of Jewish and Muslim origin, respectively). Whereas recent investigations within cultural studies have engaged in descriptive analysis of female conversion, this article will provide a causal explanation through a comparative gendered perspective, arguing that women’s heightened involvement in religion was particular to the context of forced conversion. Toward this end, I first examine how Jewish and Muslim …

Mary’S Granddaughters: Marian Conversion, Gender, And The Reproduction Of Religious Belief In Medieval And Early Modern Castile, Amanda Valdés Sánchez

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article explores how the conversion of Muslim women was perceived as being spurred by Mary’s love, as evidenced in Castilian Marian miracle collections, popular literature, church iconography, and missional policy. I argue that, in the context of the Castilian colonization of Muslim Iberia, Muslim women’s conversion was stimulated and imagined differently from their male counterparts. Through the analysis of post-thirteenth-century Castilian Marian miracle tales and devotional iconography, my research interrogates the role of Marian devotion in the construction of a model of religious conversion that specifically sought to convert women and children and identified Muslim women as the means …