Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching Visual Literacies: The Case Of The Great American Dust Bowl, Mary F. Rice, Ashley K. Dallacqua

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using The Great American Dust Bowlby Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, The Arrival (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand …

Imagining Queer Futures To Ensure Queer Survival, Leah A. Minadeo

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

For Lee Edelman. queen' lack of future is a, extension or the dominant social narrative that, thanks to reproductive futurism, reduces queerness to same-sex object-choice. That narrative renders queers strictly non-reproductive and children only accomplishable through the consummation of heterosexual pairings. Since queers cannot contribute life to the future in the form of children, queerness and queer life become aligned instead with death. This is a complex narrative that figures children as the stuff the future is made of and queer as a threat to both children and the symbolic Child. The stakes of this language is high because such …

The Impact Of Social Dominance Orientation On Female Entrepreneurial Intention, Jeffrey Muldoon, Carol Lucy, Sheryl Lidzy

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

Purpose – Understanding the factors that influence entrepreneurs throughout the entrepreneurial process has been a vital topic of entrepreneurial research. Despite societal changes, male entrepreneurs still outnumber females. The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater grasp on the factors that contribute to this phenomenon. Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing social dominance theory and social cognition theory, the authors suggest that a female entrepreneur’s social dominance orientation (SDO) and mentorship experiences will influence her social and conventional entrepreneurial intention. Findings – The authors’ theorizing suggests SDO can lower entrepreneurial self-efficacy which in turn can lower conventional entrepreneurial intentions but increase …

Fictions Of Containment In The Spanish Female Picaresque: Architectural Space And Prostitution In The Early Modern Mediterranean, Emily Kuffner

Hispanic Studies Faculty Books

This study examines the interdependence of gender, sexuality and space in the early modern period, which saw the inception of architecture as a discipline and gave rise to the first custodial institutions for women, including convents for reformed prostitutes. Meanwhile, conduct manuals established prescriptive mandates for female use of space, concentrating especially on the liminal spaces of the home. This work traces literary prostitution in the Spanish Mediterranean through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the rise of courtesan culture in several key areas through the shift from tolerance of prostitution toward repression. Kuffner’s analysis pairs canonical and noncanonical works …

“The Ground On Which I Stand” Healing Queer Trauma Through Performance: Crafting A Solo Performance Through The Investigation Of Ritual Poetic Drama Within The African Continuum, Ashley W. Grantham

Theses and Dissertations

“The Ground On Which I Stand”

Healing Queer Trauma through Performance:

Crafting a Solo Performance through the investigation of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum.

By: Ashley W. Grantham

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Performance Pedagogy at Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University

April 16^th, 2019

Thesis Adjudicator: Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates

Committee: Dr. Keith Byron Kirk, Director of Graduate Studies and Karen Kopryanski, Head of Voice and Speech

How does this method of Ritual Poetic Drama within the African Continuum, by extension, solo performance, …

Investigation Of Posttraumatic Growth On Health Behaviors With Self-Efficacy As A Mediator, Annissa Pellicano

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research has been accumulating on the positive outcomes that people may experience following trauma. However, scholarly literature is deficient in the area of investigating the association among centrality of event (CE), posttraumatic growth (PTG), and health behaviors of women with histories of sexual trauma. The purpose of this quantitative cross-sectional study was to (a) determine the extent of the relationship between CE and PTG, (b) explore the relationship between PTG and health behaviors (i.e., drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, and physical activity), and (c) to determine whether general self-efficacy (SE) mediated these relationships. The theoretical frameworks used to inform this …

The Everyday Sacred : A Symbolic Analysis Of Contemporary Yucatec Maya Women's Daily Realities, Crystal Sheedy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

As a collaborative effort between myself and the Maya women with whom I worked, who live in Xocén, this dissertation seeks to illuminate the sacred world of Maya women, as well as dismantle the insidious narrative that younger generations of Mayas are losing their culture. Instrumental to this process is the use of decolonial methods (Lawless 1993) and descriptive theoretical premises (Geertz 1973; Turner 1967, 1969) that allowed me to analyze Maya women’s discursive speech, referred to as both chismes and heridos in Spanish, which can be translated as gossip, as well as the speech genre of u t’àan nukuč …

Drops Of Ink: Lgbtq+ Poetic Expression In Wny, 1958-1990, Alyssa Clark

Papers, Documents, and Publications

No abstract provided.

Comandantas And Caracoles: The Role Of Women In The Life And Legacy Of The Zapatista Movement, Roxanne Rozo-Marsh

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis delves into the role of women in the Zapatista movement and how that role has changed over time in the private, public and political spheres. It also draws parallels between the struggle for female liberation within Zapatismo and the struggles of working-class, women of color movements in the United States. Chapters are focused on topics including women's involvement in the San Andrés Accords, the Women's Revolutionary Law, the Other Campaign and Marichuy's electoral campaign as well as personal observations from time spent in Oventik, a Zapatista caracol. As complement to the text, the thesis includes a visual zine.

Archival Of The Fittest: The Role Of Archives In Constructing Gay Dutch Historical Memory, Brooks Hosfeld

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Truth, particularly in history, is subjective and constructed through memory. Memory, in turn, is created by archivists, as they actively choose and preserve the narratives made available to researchers and the public; they hold a key position in deciding what is widely understood about what happened in the past. In the same way archivist bias leads to historical erasure, archivists establish historical remembering when they actively make space for individuals and groups who are traditionally omitted from past narratives. Community archives stand distinct from state counterparts, as they restructure what is deemed valuable enough to be preserved within historical memory, …

La Planificación Lingüística De En La Universidad De Costa Rica: Política Lingüística De Lenguaje Inclusivo De Género, Su Ejecución Y Relación Con Propuestas De Universidades Hispanohablantes, Silvia Rivera Alfaro

Publications and Research

En este artículo analizamos la política y planificación lingüística (PPL) de uso de lenguaje inclusivo de género de la Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR), de su creación al presente, relacionándola con propuestas que surgen en otras instituciones de educación superior del mundo hispanohablante. Con una perspectiva glotopolítica, describimos la PPL (Cooper, 1997) y su instrumento (CIEM, 2004); exploramos la ejecución de la PPL en documentos administrativos y noticias de la Rectoría; y contextualizamos la PPL de la UCR tras analizar las guías de uso no sexista del lenguaje de otras universidades hispanohablantes. Entre los principales resultados, tenemos que esta política …

Mapping The Intertextual Parataxis “Cover Her Face”: Feminist Geography And The Reclaiming Of Masterless Women, Cheryl L. Beedle

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

(And I Can't Stress This Enough) In My Mouth: Extradiegetic Affect As Material, C. Klockner

Theses and Dissertations

(and i can’t stress this enough) in my mouth: Extradiegetic Affect as Material is a non-linear exploration into the structures of feeling that exist in relation to cinema in its role as a technology for generating subjectivity. In the development of this research, a proposal of cinema’s likeness to the ecological circulation of microplastics is drawn in order to illustrate cinema’s materiality and nearly invisible ubiquity. The notion of extradiegetic affect is outlined as a post-cinematic condition in which lived experience becomes secondary to cinematic representation and which, simultaneously, becomes directly shaped by engaging with these representations.

End Matter

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Acts: Queer Voices And Radical Adaptation In Multi-Ethnic American Literary And Visual Culture, Michael M. Means

Theses and Dissertations

Adaptation Studies suffers from a deficiency in the study of black, brown, yellow, and red adaptive texts, adaptive actors, and their practices. Adaptive Acts intervenes in this Eurocentric discourse as a study of adaptation with a (queer) POC perspective. My dissertation reveals that artists of color (re)create texts via dynamic modes of adaptation such as hyper-literary allusion, the use of meta-narratives as framing devices, and on-site collaborative re-writes that speak to/from specific cultural discourses that Eurocentric models alone cannot account for. I examine multi-ethnic American adaptations to delineate the role of adaptation in the continuance of stories that contest dominant …

"Bachelor Buttons": Feminist And Womanist Essays And Poems, Billy E. Clem Jr.

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this critical and creative dissertation, I sketch a brief study of selected multicultural hybrid texts in contemporary US Anglophone literary studies; discuss their implications for reading, writing, and teaching; and present my own hybrid text.

Second-wave feminist and womanist theories and practices opened literary and cultural studies to new and exciting ideas and methods for reading, teaching, and writing both canonical and non-canonical Anglophone texts. One genre emerging anew by these theories, practices, and practitioners is the literary hybrid text, a multi-genre form composed of a variety of prose genres, poetry, drama, and/or visual imagery. Hybrid texts ask readers …

The Female Nature: Representations Of Motherhood And Nature In Dystopian Films, Veronica Andrea Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study will explore female representation and conceptualization of nature in dystopian narratives by examining dystopian films. The study is guided by film theory and ecofeminism to investigate themes of domination of both nature and women. The main goal is to examine the structure, themes, dialogue, and visuals in the films to explore the underlying essence of dystopian narratives and examine roles of reproduction and motherhood of female characters. The study contributes to previous studies on female and nature representation in media.

Out Of The Margins: Evolving Narrative Representation Of Women In Video Games, Rowan Lucas

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines narrative representation of female characters in video games and how game narratives and representations contribute to socio-cultural discourse. First, this thesis explores and defines the cultural background for female representation in video games. It then defines video games as a type of text and describes the features that are unique to games, such as the use of avatars, and what impacts these features have on game narratives. The thesis attempts to establish evidence of an evolutionary arc of comprehensive female representation in video games by first exploring historical female narrative tropes, and then comparing them to narrative …

Involuntary "Whiteness": The Acculturation Of Black Doctoral Female Students In The Field Of Clinical Psychology, Carmela A. Maxell-Harrison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation is based on qualitative research that documents the experiences of Black women matriculating through clinical psychology doctoral programs in predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and the perceived psychological effects of becoming a psychologist in a stigmatized field. Additionally, the historical and collective traumas that are continually experienced by this group and their coping mechanisms are explored and highlighted. More specifically, as existing research has revealed, Black women in doctoral programs in general experience a series of responses to racialized and gendered discriminatory practices leading them to withdraw from their programs or invoke coping mechanisms that may be counterintuitive to …

Waiting For A Queer Change: Gender Identity Through Performative Waiting And The Boudoir Chronotope In Call Me By Your Name, Gregory R. Clarke

Theses : Honours

This thesis analyses André Aciman’s novel, Call Me By Your Name (2007), in light of its portrayal of a nineteen-eighties gay relationship that is not entirely defined by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Rather than the abjection associated with illness and death, I focus on the narrative’s evocation of pleasure and love for its protagonists, Elio and Oliver, who do not identify as exclusively gay. My argument focuses on Elio exemplifying and undermining Roland Barthes’ trope of the lover-who-waits as historically ‘feminine’ in A Lover’s Discourse. In doing so, I demonstrate how Barthes’s work prefigures Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory.

First, …

Toward A Working Theory Of Queer Hypermedia: An Analysis Of Queer Textual Structures In Gone Home And What Remains Of Edith Finch, Cat Boers

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In this project, I analyze two video games, Gone Home (Fullbright Company 2013) and What Remains of Edith Finch (Giant Sparrow 2017), through a queer theoretical framework, focusing on three specific features of the games: 1) their status as open world games, 2) the agency given to players in interactions with objects, and 3) how ambiguous player-character identity is used to create a sense of estrangement in the player. I use these features to argue for a specifically queer theoretical approach to hypermedia, which is attentive to the process of how players create an identity for themselves within the game …

Towards A Critical Game Based Pedagogy, Justin K. Egan

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis outlines and examines core concepts of game-based learning as identified by James Paul Gee, and Kurt Squire, among other scholars. These findings are then connected to the contemporary, transformative threshold concepts of composition—as explored in Naming What We Know. This connection seeks to argue game-based pedagogy may be an invaluable tool for introducing critical perspectives to composition students in order to better equip them with critical thinking strategies and cultural critiques, while improving their writing skills. A theoretical framework is presented in the form of four “Pillars” of a Critical Game-Based Pedagogy: Literacy, Identity, Social Learning, and Multimodality—all …

Women's Empowerment As A Policy For Poverty Reduction In Haiti, Flore Saint.Louis Weinstein

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Women represent more than 50% of the population of Haiti and embody the poorest group due to their lack of socioeconomic development. Numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) including diaspora NGOs (DINGOs) have engaged in the fight to reduce poverty in Haiti by enabling empowerment programs to help women become self-reliant. The programs appear to be ineffective because the level of poverty remains high and there has been little research on the relative effectiveness and sustainability of the programs implemented by the DINGOs. Using the feminist theories of DeBeauvoir and Friedan in conjunction with the empowerment theory of AlMaseb and Julia as …

Los Ritmos Latinoamericanos Como Estrategia De Resistencia En La Ópera La Ruta De Su Evasión (2017) De Abya Yala Y Carlos Castro, Pamela Zamora Quesada

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this Master’s thesis I examine the most recent Costa Rican opera The Path of Avoidance (2017), produced by the Cultural Association for Performing Arts Abya Yala, directed by Roxana Ávila and composed by Carlos Castro, based on the homonymous novel of Yolanda Oreamuno (1948).Through a semiotic analysis, I will discuss how the innovative manner of incorporating Latin American rhythms such as salsa, bolero, vals criollo, bossa nova and tango is a musical strategy which promotes a problematization of the gender dominant discourse and patriarchal context. Simultaneously, these rhythms offer a way of resistance on the direct or psychological violence …

Ladies, Gentlemen And Guys: The Gender Politics Of Politeness, Sonam Pelden, Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Madelena Grobbelaar, Kwadwo Adusei-Asante, Lucy Hopkins

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Are there ladies and gentlemen in the 21st century? Do we need them? In the 20th century, lady became particularly unpopular with second wave feminists, who preferred ‘woman’. Gentleman was seen as similarly politically incorrect: class, race and culture bound. Following previous research on the word lady, we explore here some current evocations and debates around these words. We consider how the more casual, etymologically gendered term ‘guy’ has been utilized for men and women, and how it functions to reflect and obscure gender. While the return of the lady might be considered a consumer fad, a neo-conservative post-feminist backlash, …

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining In American Women’S Life Narratives, 1859-1912, Gokce Tekeli

Theses and Dissertations--English

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining in American Women’s Life Narratives, 1859-1912, studies three marginalized and disadvantaged American women’s self-life narratives during a transitional period in American history. In this dissertation, I am taking an interdisciplinary approach. Where We Belong borrows from social geography, new materialism, and autobiography studies in order to complicate critical discussions of women’s space and place in nineteenth-century women’s self-life narratives. Each chapter of Where We Belong presents a case study with the goal to provide a broader understanding of women’s strategies of belonging due to and despite their spatial exclusions. The overarching emphasis in each …

Resistance To Neocolonialism In Contemporary Chinese Literary Theory, Zeng Jun

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Resistance to Neocolonialism in Contemporary Chinese Literary Theory" Jun ZENG claims that the introduction of Western Literary Theory in the past forty years of China's reform and opening up was carried out under the background of neo-colonialism. "Western imagination" in the discourse of contemporary Chinese literary theory was an important aspect of the strategy of cultural resistance under the overwhelming influence of Western neocolonialism. Contemporary Chinese literary theory no longer simply regards Western literary theory in the twentieth century as a bourgeois literary ideology; instead, it adopts a "de-ideological" attitude to return to the issues of literature, …

The End Of The Nobel Era And The Reconstruction Of The World Republic Of Letters, Guohua Zhu, Yonghua Tang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "The End of the Nobel Era and the Reconstruction of the World Republic of Letters" Guohua Zhu and Yonghua Tang critically examine mechanisms of cultural hegemony associated with the Nobel Prize in Literature from a neocolonial lens. Borrowing from Casanova's idea of the "World Republic of Letters" and its attentiveness to geopolitics, the essay proceeds to reconstruct the dialectical relations between the nation and the world. It does so, in the first place, by documenting and analyzing the process of negotiation and bargaining entailed in the construction of global cultural hegemony and thereby examine the functions and …

Restaging World Literature In The Age Of Neoliberalism/Neocolonialism, Shaobo Xie

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Restaging World Literature in the Age of Neoliberal­ism/Neocolonia­­lism" Shaobo Xie argues that Goethe's notion of world literature spells a genuine universalism that contributes to resistance to neoliberal imperialism. In the age of neocolonial­ism/ne­oliberalism all conduct, and all spheres of human life are framed and measured by economic terms and metrics and neoliberalism both as a govern­ing rationality and as an economic policy is penetrating into every part of the world. The politics that is really heter­ogeneous or external to the rule of neoliberal capitalism in the neocolonial global present consists in thinking towards new possibilities of organizing …

"The Politics Of Literature In Michel Foucault: Veridiction, Fiction And Desire", Azucena G. Blanco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article is based on two hypotheses. The first is that in the later Foucault we would find a reformulation of the status that literature had occupied in his work and the development of a politics of literature (already developed in “Sujetos irregulares: ficción y política en el Sade de Michel Foucault”). The second considers that fiction and desire are inseparably joined, which leads me to analyse the logic of Sade as logic of desire in the lectures that Foucault gave on the author at the University of Buffalo (1970). A reading of both aspects together needs to be …