History of Gender Commons^™

Prudery And Perversion: Domination Of The Sexual Body In Middle-Class Men, Women, And Disenfranchised Bodies In Victorian England, Ashley Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research argues that with the rise of the middle-class, Victorian England saw the development of a power model in which middle-class men, middle-class women and disenfranchised bodies of children and lower-class women suffered from the demands of bodily domination. Because the bodily health of middle-class men was believed to represent national health, it was imperative that he dominate his body, particularly with regard to sexual urges. Consequently, the bodies of women with whom he sought sexual release suffered from forms of bodily domination as well. Through an analysis of journals and private writings of those living in Victorian England, …

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20^th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20^th century. I discuss pre-historical …

Barteaux, Kennedy, Kayla Woodward, Nathanial Koch

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Kennedy Barteaux is a 38 year old trans man who grew up in Norridgewock, Maine who knew from a young age that he was queer. He was outed to his parents as a lesbian at age 14 and was kicked out of the house and moved in with a supportive friend’s family in Skowhegan. He moved to Portland at age 18 and got involved with the Dyke March. Barteaux discusses his discomfort with existing gender expectations and stereotypes in both the gay and trans communities. He talks about community organizing and public speaking with and for the trans community (including …

Solomon, Howard, Richard Morin, Michelle Johnston

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Howard Solomon is a 76 year-old man who grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania. During his early years, and still today, Judaism played a significant role in his life. His dad was a Kosher butcher, and Solomon attended a Hebrew school while growing up. Solomon’s profession was teaching history as a college professor at New York University, Tufts University, and the University of Southern Maine. Towards the end of his full-time teaching career, he taught a class about Lesbian and Gay History. During the same period, he openly discussed his homosexuality in the university context. He witnessed the AIDS epidemic …

Abdurraqib, Samaa, Iris Sangiovanni, Samar Ahmed

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Samaa Abdurraqib is a Black, queer, Muslim woman living in Portland, Maine. Abdurraqib was raised in Columbus, Ohio. She attend the University of Ohio, and later the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a PhD in English Literature. After graduating she worked as a visiting professor at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Next she went on to work the American Civil Liberties Union in Maine as a reproductive rights organizer. She now works for the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. Her advocacy and organizing work has included places such as Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine, …

Vermette, Jean, Annie Holland, Olivia Tryon-Nadeau

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jean Vermette, born in 1954, is a transgender woman from Skowhegan, Maine. At the age of three, Jean knew that her biological sex did not match her gender identity. When Jean came out as transgender to her wife in the 1980s, her marriage soon dissolved. After Jean filed for divorce, she spent five years transitioning. In addition to working as a self-employed electrician, Jean has dedicated her adult life to advocating for Maine’s transgender community. She created the Maine Gender Resource and Support Service and spent over fifteen years speaking publicly to Maine college students and medical professionals about the …

Parsons, Betsy, Shanisa Rodriguez, Madison Leblanc

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Betsy Parsons grew up in a Midwestern town in the 1960s and 1970’s in a middle class educated family active in the local community. Her father and mother were both teachers. Her mother and father met in Orono, Maine in English class before migrating to the Midwest. Parsons describes developing a love a teaching from her parents; she knew from a young age that she wanted to become a teacher herself and began teaching at Portland High School in 1977. She describes herself as a ‘late bloomer’ in terms of her sexuality; she didn’t come out to herself until her …

Bull, Steven, Alanna Larrivee, Tracy Payne

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

In this interview (part 1 of a two part interview), Steve Bull describes growing up in the 1950s in Kennebunk and Cape Porpoise and becoming conscious at a young age of being “different.” At age 6 or 7, he was discovered having sex with a playmate. When, at age 13, his family moved to New Jersey, Steve instead secured a scholarship to instead attend an expensive boarding school in Massachusetts where he found himself surrounded by children from wealthy families and became aware of social justice, anti-war, and civil rights activism. After attending Johns Hopkins University for two years he …

Research And Study Of Fashion And Costume History Spanning From Ancient Egypt To Modern Day, Kaitlyn E. Dennis Miss

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Through a generous donation to Morehead State University, research has been conducted on thousands of slides containing images of artwork and artifacts of historical significance. These images span from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the inaugural dress of every first lady of the United States. The slides are in the process of being recorded and catalogued for future use by students in hopes of furthering academic comprehension and awareness of the influence of fashion and costume history through the ages. Special thanks to the family of Gretel Geist Rutledge, faculty mentor Denise Watkins, as well as the Department of Music, Theatre, and …

Welcome To Dignity, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Arbor, Kelly, Alanna Larrivee, Emma Wynn Hill

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Kelly Arbor, who identifies as genderqueer, was born in Rumford, Maine in 1977. Arbor is an artist, educator, and proud activist. They have been involved with activism throughout their life including in college at the University of Vermont. In this interview, Arbor talks about overcoming challenges growing up trans in a rural community, and discusses such issues as poverty, classism, LGBTQ representation, sex education in schools, incest, consent, AIDS, and substance abuse. Kelly Arbor also describes being involved in the Maine-based group MESH – Maine Educationalists on Sexual Harmony – a group working to create a dialogue surrounding sex positivity …

Women Of The Incan Empire: Before And After The Conquest Of Peru, Sarah A. Hunt

Student Research

This paper contrasts the life of Incan women before and after the Spanish conquest of Peru by Pizarro. Spanish colonization of Peru had a significant, negative impact on Incan women, across social, economic, and religious sectors. Before the conquest, women held fairly complimentary, rather than subordinate roles to men in society. Spanish rule introduced a strict patriarchy, which reduced Incan women to second-class citizens. The Spanish exploited women within the economy, and destroyed the once revered female religious institutions. Examining women in conquest history provides an intimate look at gender and power relations, socio-economics, and the shifting familial and cultural …

Home Front To War Front: The Navy Nurse Corps During World War Ii, Amanda L. Thibault

Student Publications

The Navy Nurse Corps was created in 1908, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Naval Appropriations Bill. Twenty women were selected to become the corps’ first members. These women were referred to as the “The Sacred Twenty.” On December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the Navy Nurse Corps, was one of the first groups to respond. These women were important in preventing further deaths following the attack. However the experiences of Navy nurses during World II are often left untold because their story is overshadowed by the Army Nurse Corps, which doubled in size during the war. …

The Bodies, Minds, Desires And Scorn Of Britain's "Stepdaughters Of War", Alexandra J. Lightle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis revolves around Evadne Price’s novel, Not So Quiet… Stepdaughters of War, published in 1930 under the pen name Helen Zenna Smith. The book delves into the inner life of a young female driver in a voluntary ambulance corps in France during World War I. Throughout the novel the reader is witness to the hardships of young women who left their sheltered drawing rooms only to be plunged into the apocalyptic landscape of the Western Front. They were ill informed as to what they were volunteering for and they struggled desperately to cope with the heretofore unimagined carnage. …

The "Rib" Of The South? An Analysis Of Feminine Agency Among Southern Elite Women Of The Antebellum Period (1815-1860), Louann Marie Sabatini

Theses

No abstract provided.

Shaken, Not Stirred: Espionage, Fantasy, And British Masculinity During The Cold War, Anna Rikki Nelson

Master's Theses

This project seeks to define and explore the development of Cold War British masculinity and national identity in response to decolonization. Following World War II, Great Britain experienced a time of political and cultural rebuilding. This project argues that following World War II, Britain had to renegotiate gender and national identity within the context of decolonization, the rise of the welfare state, and Britain’s diminished role in global politics, and the tensions within gender and national identity were expressed in Britain’s interest in espionage narratives both real and fictionalized. British spy novels by Ian Fleming, Desmond Cory, and John Le …

Queer History Of The United States: A Syllabus, Jordan Ostrum

History Summer Fellows

This project is a proposed syllabus of a college level history course dealing with queer and trans experiences in the 20^th century. The course utilizes the Ursinus inquiry based approach to learning, focusing on the core questions “How can we understand the world?” and “How should we live together?” Supplementary materials, such as the course proposal, are meant to encourage the Ursinus College History Department to offer the course in the future.

A Tale Of Two Sisters: Family Histories From The Strait Salish Borderlands, Katrina Jagodinsky

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Based on legal and genealogical records, this microhistory chronicles the difficult choices between whiteness and Indianness made by two Salish sisters and their biracial children in order to maintain their kinship networks throughout the Salish Sea borderlands between 1865 and 1919. While some of these choices obscured individual family members from historical records, reading their lives in tandem with other family members’ histories reveals remarkable persistence in the midst of dramatic racial and political transformation. Focused primarily on San Juan Island residents, this article suggests that indigenous and interracial family histories of the Pacific Northwest and other borderland regions in …

More Than One Way To Measure: Masculinity In The Zurkaneh Of Safavid Iran, Zachary T. Smith

The Hilltop Review

The zurkhaneh of early modern Safavid Iran was an institution where men undertook physical training, in some ways reminiscent of a modern-day gymn. This paper attempts to theorize the zurkhaneh as a public space in which primarily non-elite men participated in the social economy of early modern Safavid Iran based upon their pursuit of the ideal of javanmardi, or young manliness. To accomplish this, this paper will combine the themes of publicity, the social utility of the body, and the authority of textuality with an examination of the physical culture of the zurkhaneh to theorize the utility, representation, and …

Unconfessing Transgender: Dysphoric Youths And The Medicalization Of Madness In John Gower’S “Tale Of Iphis And Ianthe”, M W. Bychowski

Accessus

On the brink of the twenty-first century, Judith Butler argues in “Undiagnosing Gender” that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) defines the psychiatric condition of “Gender Identity Disorder” (or “Gender Dysphoria”) in ways that control biological diversity and construct “transgender” as a marginalized identity. By turning the study of gender away from vulnerable individuals and towards the broader systems of power, Butler works to liberate bodies from the medical mechanisms managing difference and precluding potentially disruptive innovations in forms of life and embodiment by creating categories of gender and disability.

Turning to the brink of the 15 …