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From Humanitarian Aid To “Counterrevolution”: Foreign Assistance To Pentecostals In Soviet Ukraine And Its Criminalization By The Gpu–Nkvd, 1932–1935, Oleksandr Korotaiev

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article examines foreign assistance to Pentecostal communities in the Ukrainian SSR and the mechanisms of its criminalization by Soviet state security agencies in 1932–1935. Drawing on GPU–NKVD criminal investigation files, secret police reports, party-state documentation, personal correspondence, and memoir sources, the study reconstructs transnational channels of humanitarian support, practices of resource distribution, and the transformation of survival strategies into objects of political repression.

Particular attention is devoted to two distinct models of foreign assistance. The Odessa case demonstrates a centralized system connected to the former leadership of the All-Ukrainian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith and transnational Pentecostal networks …

Reclaiming The Silenced: West African Women, Anticolonial Activism, And Storytelling As Historical Resistance, Tahsina Nasir

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper examines the systematic erasure of West African women from dominant historical narratives of anticolonial liberation, focusing on decolonization and post-independence nation building in Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, and Nigeria. Although women played central roles in organizing, mobilizing, and educating during nationalist movements, their contributions were increasingly sidelined once state power was achieved. Drawing on feminist historiography, Black feminist thought, and archival and literary sources, this study analyzes how state actors dismantled autonomous women’s organizations, including the Federation of Ghana Women, and confined women to symbolic roles within party-controlled structures. Figures such as Hannah Kudjoe, once central to political mobilization, were …

Ascription, Rafael Lubner

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Entry for special issue, 'Keywords for Value and Culture'

“Enslavement By Unbridled Passions:” Catholic Magisterial Institutional Attitudes Toward Homosexuals In Poland Between 1945 And 1989, Agnieszka Laddach

Journal of Global Catholicism

During Communism, the Polish bishops presented a narrative about (homo)sexuality with in order to create the image of a righteous moral and social life that was to influence the Catholics. In my research I conduced a thematic analysis of this narrative. I highlight the doctrinal and Polish social-religious context to foreground tendencies in the formation of Church teaching about homosexuality as well as the importance of the Church in Poland to its formation. Then, I show the factors that characterize the episcopal discourse’s content and language about homosexuality, recognizing that components of episcopal discourse suggest a specificity of Church potential …

A Review Of Deborah Weiss's Women And Madness In The Early Romantic Novel: Injured Minds, Ruined Lives, Jennifer L. Nault Ms

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

A review of Women and Madness in the Early Romantic Novel by Jennifer Nault.

The Ocean Is Not A Machine: A Feminist Media Analysis Of Oceanographic Models, Simulations, And Futures, Clarissa Chevalier

Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality: Faculty Publications

This article examines how scientific and artistic representations and technologies shape ocean futures. Dominant Western oceanography frequently engages mechanistic metaphors that conceptualize the ocean as a machine, pump, or carbon sponge. This way of visualizing the ocean, guided by the logics of control and quantification, shapes contemporary remote sensing, modeling, and prediction technologies. Alternative approaches to oceanographic representation, including Indigenous, anticolonial, Black feminist, and artistic approaches, offer critical counterweights to destabilize the authority granted to mechanistic oceanographic representations. Ocean simulations and scale models are infrastructures through which ocean futures are rendered and presented in multidimensional space. Through a comparative media …

“None In Velvet Gowns”: Camp Followers And White Womanhood In Eighteenth-Century Anglo-American Warfare, Angelica Labren Torres

History Theses

For over two hundred years, women who followed American and European armies during the long eighteenth century were popularly stereotyped and denigrated as prostitutes, burdens, and generally individuals of ill repute by both contemporaries and subsequent generations of historians. While recent scholarship has largely debunked this long-standing characterization as simplistic and inaccurate, the question remains: why exactly were these women so mischaracterized in their own time, particularly by commissioned officers and other members of Anglo-American middling and elite classes, when ample evidence existed of their material usefulness and comparative marital fidelity? This thesis seeks to address the ideological and cultural …

Dalit And Tribal Women As Ecological Victims, Dhinakaran Savariyar

The Journal of Social Encounters

The essay examines the ecological marginalization of Dalit and tribal women in India, especially by analysing the three points of intersection, namely, caste, patriarchy, and gender. Though it starts with a global outlook on the African water crisis, it substantiates the argument with Indian realities of water inequality and resource depletion. While showing caste as the root cause of water discrimination in the country, it exposes the abetting roles of patriarchy and gender in keeping the Dalit and tribal women at the lowest position in the Indian social fabric. Environmental casteism and exclusion from decision-making processes add to the invisibility …

Elizabeth Female Academy: A Historical Case Study Revealing Antebellum Mississippi's Role In Shaping The Southern Belle, Summer Cutrer Tierno

Dissertations

Historians and educational scholars have extensively examined the subject of women's education, resulting in a rich body of literature that traces its evolution over the centuries. Moreover, this body of work encompasses significant movements advocating for women's rights to education and the establishment of colleges specifically for women. Scholars have also analyzed the challenges women encounter in accessing educational opportunities, including societal norms, economic barriers, and institutional discrimination. Notable works highlight the contributions of key figures, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, who advocated for women's education in both historical and contemporary contexts. Overall, this comprehensive scholarship not only documents the advancement …

Female Embodiment And Corporeality In Sanskrit Prognostication: A Study Of The Bṛhatpārāśarahorā Śāstra, Tara Sheemar

Journal of International Women's Studies

The connection between traditional Indian knowledge systems of astrology, medicine, and drama has been noted by scholars. Of particular concern for gender analysis is the reading of lakṣaṇas (bodily marks) that developed in astrology. The coded knowledge of astrology—the sharing of fundamental meanings with other Sanskrit knowledge systems—became a significant tool for gendered prognostication, which buttressed normative gender roles for men and women. In this paper, I attempt to unravel the code of lakṣaṇas given in the Bṛhatpārāśarahorā Śāstra, a text composed between the 7th and 9th centuries CE. The focus will be on the sections of the text …

Body Of Light, Lucy C. Adams

Theses and Dissertations

Body of Light is a two channel video installation, incorporating a combination of archival material and present day footage to explore and speculate upon the traces of Audrey Munson’s life that remain, a ghostly presence creeping into our current world.

Working Paper: The Role Of Nafeer And Social Networks In Sudan’S Humanitarian Response And The Challenges For International Aid, Mazin Sharfi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This paper explores the integral role of Nafeer, a traditional Sudanese communal practice, and social networks in addressing humanitarian crises, focusing on the ongoing 2023 conflict. Nafeer, rooted in rural agricultural settings, has evolved to mobilise urban communities for emergency responses, while social networks extend social support beyond family ties, providing a complementary layer of resource-sharing. Both systems, decentralised and grassroots in nature, contrast sharply with formal international aid structures. The research highlights how Nafeer and social networks mobilise resources through traditional means, such as mobilising social capital and economic resources including remittances, and modern mechanisms, like crowdfunding. It underscores …

Introduction To The Special Issue: Reproductive Justice Across Disciplines And Demographics, Priyanka Tripathi, Laura Lazzari

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

The History And Manifestations Of The Metaverse In Contemporary Literature, Marlon Semuel Contantin Kansil, Wanting Sun

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

The metaverse, an interactive and immersive virtual world, has emerged as a critical theme in contemporary literature, significantly impacting narratives and character development. This paper explores the history and literary manifestations of the metaverse, investigating its influence on identity, space, and social interactions. We find that the metaverse supports flexible and individualistic identities, reshaping how characters and readers understand themselves. The digital space of the metaverse provides a dynamic setting for moral and emotional conflicts, enriching the literary aesthetics of space. Furthermore, literature plays a crucial role in both shaping and reflecting the concept of the metaverse, employing symbolism and …

Suburbanization As A Post-Industrial Essentiality: Revisiting Sweden's Miljonprogrammet, Colin Wood

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Definitively speaking, suburbanization does not equate to post-industrialism in the same limelight as would urbanization and industrialism. However, anomalous cases, such as the one being discussed in this paper, tangentially interlink on a socioeconomic basis. In 1965, Sweden began construction of the Miljonprogrammet (Million Programme), where over the next ten years, over one million domiciles were built in a suburban setting leading to a mass diaspora of ‘slum living’ Swedish industrial workers. The nation’s renowned welfare state, built on a collaborative system between public and private sectors as well as federal and municipal actors, overlooked housing in its social …

Book Review: To Advance The Race: Black Women’S Higher Education From The Antebellum Era To The 1960s, Jennifer Rycenga

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Right-Wing Populist Mobilizations And Gender: France's Rassemblement National And Italy's Fratelli D'Italia, Meredith Mckinley

Scripps Senior Theses

European right-wing populist (RWP) parties are increasingly touting their attention to women’s issues and representation, and this has coincided with stronger electoral performances. Thus, the following puzzles emerge: how have RWP parties harnessed gender frames, issue salience, and women’s representation as part of a mainstreaming process, and through what mechanisms are these strategies resonating with voters? I address these questions by comparing France’s Rassemblement National (RN) and Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI), tracing their developments from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. I find that immigrants’ perceived relationship with the welfare state, feelings of insecurity due to terrorism, and RWP …

Worldbuilding A Queer Before: D&D As A Neomedievalism For A Modern Age, Brianna M. Thompson

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has had countless participants and audience members in the course of its over fifty-year existence. It has also been the subject of several studies that attempt to capture its unique form of performative play. Yet, there has been a scarcity of scholarship on how D&D acts as a neomedievalism and how that can offer a queer kind of opportunity to its players, allowing them to find a place in a past that is historically inaccessible and yet endlessly in the process of being (re)imagined. Using an interweaving of archival theory with queer and performance studies, particularly …

A Feminist Evaluation Of The Joint Programme: Assessing The Cultural Sensitivity Of Unicef And Unfpa's Strategies On Female Genital Cutting/Circumcision In Senegal And Nigeria, Coumba Soumare

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Female Genital Cutting/Circumcision (FGC) encompasses procedures involving the partial or total removal of female external genitalia or other genital injuries, performed for non-medical reasons. Typically carried out on young girls, often between infancy and age 15, FGC is widely condemned in global discourse as a harmful and barbaric practice. However, within certain cultures, it is viewed as a rite of passage or a necessary tradition. I argue that to effectively address FGC, organizations must adopt a culturally sensitive approach. This research examines the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund’s (UNFPA) initiatives in Senegal and Nigeria. …

Mirrors Of The Reel: Black Women's Identity In American Cinema (2009-2024), Melanie-Penny Harrison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigates whether white supremacy structures, embodied in Hollywood’s predominantly white leadership, drive negative portrayals of Black women in 31 mainstream American films from 2009 to 2024. Employing a mixed-methods approach—quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis (QCA), and narrative methodology—I code portrayals for racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, colorism, and internalized racism, classifying them as progressive (e.g., empowered roles), regressive (e.g., subservient stereotypes), or hybrid. Guided by Critical Race Theory and intersectionality, the analysis examines narrative structures, character agency, symbolism, and dialogue to uncover intersectional patterns (e.g., race, gender, class) across three periods: 2009–2013, 2014–2018, and 2019–2024. Across these periods, cultural …

My Body My Choice: A Qualitative Study Of Volitional Female Sterilization In The U. S. Latina And Hispanic Female Population, Heather Morris Tuip

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study, utilizing an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, elucidates the experience of Latina and Hispanic women living in the United States who have volitionally undergone sterilization or have sought the procedure out for birth control. Understanding the rich, contextual, lived experience of Latina and Hispanic women through an intersectional framework highlights how cultural influences and contemporary policies on reproductive rights informed their personal choice to undergo a female sterilization procedure. The participants of this study shared how they made meaning of their experiences. Within a homogenous sampling of study participants who share ethnicities and genders, six group experiential themes …

Simulating An Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment Salon: Embodied Experience And Scholarly Investigation, Jennifer M. Jones

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This paper reflects on my experience simulating an 18th-century French salon for an academic conference and in an undergraduate classroom. I argue that simulating a salon is heuristically as well as pedagogically useful and allows historians to test hypotheses about the nature of the salon and the role of the salonnière proposed by scholars such as Dena Goodman and Antoine Lilti. The essay also engages with some of the important insights gained from feminist and performance theory regarding historical reenactment. Thus I caution against naive attempts to reenact the past and instead suggest practices that foster open-ended conversations about the …

Performing Masculinities: The Assumption Of Men’S Roles By Women Left Behind By Male Migrant Labourers In Southern Tanzania, Nives Kinunda, Angelus Mnenuka, Samwel Mhajida

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This article examines the empowerment of female farmers in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania due to male labour migration during the British colonial rule. The study sought to highlight the history of gender-based division of labour, the dynamics of labour division during the colonial period, the trend of females’ adoption of males’ activities, and women’s empowerment resulting from their assumption of males’ responsibilities. Data were collected through oral interviews, documentary reviews, group-focused discussions, and archival sources. The data were analysed and interpreted using a gender framework theory, which includes, among other things, gender roles and gender relations. Findings show that …

Feminist History: Forgotten Women Writers Of The Generation Of 1927 In Spain, Feixiang Liu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study primarily focuses on the women writers of the Generation of 1927 in Spain who rose to prominence in the 1920s. Often referred to as Las Sinsombrero, these women writers have made significant contributions to gender equality and literature; however, despite their outstanding achievements, knowledge of this literary movement tends to focus only on the male writers, and it is only in recent years that the women writers in this generation have been rediscovered. The historical context in which these writers emerged—a period marked by the rise of feminism in Spain—is considered as an important part of understanding the …

The Foreigner In Our Midst: Jewish Rights Debates In Revolutionary France, William Evans

Best Integrated Writing

The debates surrounding Jewish rights during the French Revolution concerned many of the same subjects that divide the Western world today. The fear of the other, immigration as a political tool, and the disagreements over assimilation are all subjects which feature prominently today. In this essay Evans sets out to explore these debates while fairly assessing the historical informants.

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2024 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Kristie Mckiernan, Tracy Smith

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

Speculum Feminarum: Feminine Representation And Identity In Fifteenth-Century France, Karli R. Snyder

Art & Art History ETDs

Late medieval views of women in Western European culture, specifically in fifteenth-century France, were predicated on the ideologies of "other." According to normative sociocultural attitudes of this period, women were immoral, lascivious, and indulged in frivolity. Their culturally acceptable and, therefore, natural roles were delineated solely as that of wife and mother. Although the origin of these views is obscured by time, there are scores of textual and visual examples of this cultural labeling. This thesis focuses on how the ideologies of feminine sociocultural roles developed and matured during the late Middle Ages. By comparatively analyzing copies of the visual …

Evolving Narratives Of Gulf Press Representations Of Women With Disabilities, Shujun Jiang, Muhammed Musa

Journal of International Women's Studies

People with disabilities make up 16% of the world’s population, an estimated 1.3 billion individuals. Because many people rely on the media to make sense of the world, a skewed perception of people with disabilities has become dominant in society today. People with disabilities are largely depicted in the media as deserving of pity and charity and always dependent on others for survival. The media provides us with narratives that we use to create interpretations of the world around us and, consequently, become bases of norms and attitudes about issues and persons around us. This paper studies Gulf Cooperation Council …

Heretic, J. Barton Scott

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Heretic (2024), directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods.

The Involvement Of Terengganu Malay Women In The Copra Industry, 1900-1941, Norazilawati Abd Wahab, Zuliskandar Ramli, Mohd Firdaus Abdullah, Nur Alia Shamsul Bahri, Mohamad Muhaymein Ahmed Zawawi, Abdullah Ibrahim, Ruhaizan Sulaiman, Nurshuhada Mohamed

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this study is to investigate the position of women in Terengganu’s copra industry between 1900 and 1941. Coconut is one of the major crops traditionally farmed in Terengganu, and during this time period, excess coconuts were dried, smoked, and grated to become copra. In Terengganu, the copra sector was intimately linked to women, who were innovators creating a variety of coconut-based food and non-food products, including soap, cooking oil, traditional desserts, and more. Nevertheless, prior studies have mostly disregarded the creative role that women played in Terengganu’s copra sector during this time. Studies on women from Terengganu …