Digital Commons Network^™

Challenging Queer As “Neoliberal”: The Radical Politics Of South Asian Diasporic Lesbian Representational Culture, Sri Craven

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay contributes to transnational feminist and queer interests in neoliberalism, sexual politics and representational cultures that all circulate globally today. It reads Deepa Mehta’s film, Fire (1996), and Suniti Namjoshi’s literary venture, Goja: An Autobiographical Myth (2000). Each processes the question of lesbian visibility as a question of female labor and class relations among women. By analyzing representations of lesbian life in the context of laboring female bodies, the article challenges the dismissal of queer politics as neoliberal in India. Sexual identity politics, as critics argue, often dovetails with neoliberalism’s project of protecting elite and bourgeois subjects’ interests at …

Surface Reading The Upside Down Chandelier: Interface “Mastery” And Feminism, Kathi Inman Berens

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay compares the literary interfaces of one artwork, The Upside Down Chandelier [UDC], in two settings: a large-scale installation taking up a gallery room, and in a browser window. UDC is a generative, multimedia artwork authored in Flash by four women electronic literature artists using four spoken languages. It uses the same code base for both settings. The installation’s embodied and site-specific context at the gallery created multiple vantages from which to “read” the work’s design and purpose. In browser, UDC’s words are the only point of access. The reader’s urge to decode the words in …

Negotiating Desire: Resisting, Reimagining And Reinscribing Normalized Sexuality And Gender In Fan Fiction, Charity A. Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

Fan studies has examined how fan fiction resists heteronormativity by challenging depictions of gender and sexuality, but to date, this inquiry has focused disproportionately on slash, to the exclusion of other genres of fan fiction. Additionally, scholars disagree about slash’s subversive effects by setting up a seemingly stable dichotomy—subversive vs. misogynistic—where one does not necessarily exist.

In this project, I examine multiple genres of fan fiction—namely, slash arising from bromances; femslash from female friendships; incestuous fan fiction from dysfunctional familial relationships; and polyamorous fics. I chose fics from four televisions shows—NBC’s Revolution, MTV’s Teen Wolf, the CW’s The …

Women And Social Movement In Modern Empires Since 1820, Elisabeth Armstrong

Study of Women, Gender, & Sexuality: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bowles's Up Above The World As Beatnik Murder Mystery, Greg Bevan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Bowles's Up Above the World as Beatnik Murder Mystery" Greg Bevan discusses Paul Bowles's fourth and final novel, which at the time of its publication was met with mixed reactions from reviewers and its creator alike, and has seen relatively scanty critical attention in the years since. Gena Dagel Caponi perceives in the novel a reflection of Bowles's struggle for control, during the time of its writing, in the face of his wife Jane's terminal illness. Building on this insight, the current essay notes the same tension in the writings of the Beats—a movement with which Bowles …

Theories Of Opiate Addiction In The Early Works Of Burroughs And Trocchi, Richard English

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Theories of Opiate Addiction in the Early Works of Burroughs and Trocchi" Richard English discusses William S. Burroughs's and Alexander Trocchi's representations of opiate addiction with special reference to their early writings. English examines the concept of homo heroin that can be attributed to Burroughs and lists and expounds its qualities. Among these are: immorality, criminality, mono-objectuality, self- and other-indifference, and, most importantly, the radical physical transformation into a new species, which Burroughs extends in Naked Lunch. English shows how homo heroin relates to Trocchi's conception of a heroin addict, which serves to illustrate that homo …

The Cultural Translation Of Ginsberg's Howl In Turkey, Erik Mortenson

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "The Cultural Translation of Ginsberg's Howl in Turkey" Erik Mortenson examines three Turkish translations of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl in order to explore the ways in which Ginsberg's poem becomes redeployed in new cultural contexts. Orhan Duru and Ferit Edgü's 1976 translation presents a more politicized Ginsberg that draws on his anti-establishment credentials as a social activist. This comes as little surprise, since in pre-1980 coup Turkey rebellion was thought in purely political terms of right verses left. Hakan Arslan's 1991 update provides a less political and more familiar Ginsberg, in keeping with a society that left …

Race, Gender, And The Beats In Tan Magazine's "I Was A Victim Of The Beat Generation", Chelsea M. Stripe

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Race, Gender, and the Beats in Tan Magazine's 'I Was a Victim of the Beat Generation'" Chelsea Stripe discusses the "true to life" story of Sara Howard, a single African American mother who becomes pregnant by a white Beat and struggles to raise their child alone. On the one hand, "I Was a Victim of the Beat Generation" emphasizes the exploitative character of Beats' affinity for African American culture and of their attitudes toward women. Further, Howard's story critiques the social fluidity that Beat privilege allows. On the other hand, the story articulates conservative US-American middle class …

How Burroughs Plays With The Brain, Or Ritornellos As A Means To Produce Déjà-Vu, Antonio José Bonome

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "How Burroughs Plays with the Brain, or Ritornellos as a Means to Produce Déjà-Vu" Antonio José Bonome discusses how the recurrence and significance of one of William S. Burroughs's most potent refrains, "dim jerky faraway," was inspired by its source text, Paul Bowles's second novel Let It Come Down (1952), where Tangiers-Interzone fuels the unwholesome descent of a US-American expatriate not unlike Bowles or Burroughs himself. "Dim jerky faraway" was used by Burroughs during more than two decades in different contexts, and its textual variations have sparked a mélange of colors, sounds, smells, and feelings oscillating in …

Verge, Jessica A. Collins

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This poetry thesis explores the relationship of the Buddhist concept of nonduality to polar mood disorders by employing motifs of bomb testing, war crimes, spiders, and seascapes. A critical preface credits Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, and Mary Ruefle as influences. The manuscript favors free-verse poetry and field composition, though also includes a lyric essay and two formal poems.

Juan Rodríguez Del Padrón, Triunfo De Las Donas / The Triumph Of Ladies, Emily C. Francomano

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

The Triunfo de las donas (The Triumph of Ladies) (1438-1441) by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón (fl. 1440s), is among the very first contributions in Hispanic literature to the pro-feminine modality of the querelle des femmes, or querella de las mujeres. Composed as the preface and dedication to María of Aragón (1396-1445), queen consort of Juan II of Castile (1405-1454), for Rodríguez del Padrón's Cadira de honor (The Seat of Honor), a treatise in defense of noble lineages, the Triunfo de las donas asserts the superiority of women over men, and in so doing, the supremacy of Queen María …

Review Of Rivka Swenson, Essential Scots And The Idea Of Unionism In Anglo-Scottish Literature, 1603-1832, Rhona Brown

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

Review: Rivka Swenson, Essential Scots and the Idea of Unionism in Anglo-Scottish Literature, 1603-1832

“I Know You Want It”: Teaching The Blurred Lines Of Eighteenth-Century Rape Culture, Emily J. Dowd-Arrow, Sarah R. Creel

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

“‘I Know You Want It’: Teaching the Blurred Lines of Eighteenth-Century Rape Culture” is a collaborative pedagogical article that addresses the problem of so-called “post-feminism” in the contemporary college classroom by way of a comparative approach to eighteenth-century literature. Specifically, we contextualize and compare the early and late work of Eliza Haywood with current cultural debates and events in order to demonstrate not only the relevance of Haywood and eighteenth-century writers like her, but the importance of continuing the feminist conversation. The article provides texts, readings, and discussion points for consideration, as well as links to relevant contemporary issues and …

Strindberg's Miss Julie: An Exploitation Of Genderlect And Liberatory Pedagogy, Jenava Moreau Harris

Theses and Dissertations from 2016

Navigating the complexities of naturalist dramatic literature proves to be a challenge under the best circumstances. How do we attempt to highlight the major themes and tenants of Naturalism through an educational theatre lens? What happens when the show is then double cast due to indecisiveness? How do we handle actors with personal trauma influencing their ability to work with vulnerability and physical contact? These questions and others were answered throughout this master’s thesis production of Miss Julie by August Strindberg. Through a process guided by social research and dramaturgical attention to detail, this director was able to explore a …

Bad Girls In Corsets: Women And The Transgressive Body In The Nineteenth Century, Colleen Warwick Green

Open Access Dissertations

Women, and their bodies, posed an increasing anxiety for Victorian society. Culturally and outwardly, the Victorian era strove to maintain a level of decorum that, increasingly, the nineteenth-century woman were, rebelling against. The urge for women to break through social barriers and constraints binding them to the century created a divergence in thought from the traditional mores of the past, in turn affecting the ways in which womens’ bodies were portrayed, displayed and manipulated by the authors and artists of the century.

As women entered actively entered into spaces once closed to them, they furthered the rift of uncertainty and …

Perceval's Sister And Juliet Capulet As Disruptive Guides In Spiritual Quests, Joanna Benskin

Open Access Dissertations

Perceval’s sister in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet act as disruptive guides in spiritual quests by contradicting the expectations placed on them as women characters.

Though women are banned from the quest for the Holy Grail, Perceval’s sister accompanies the Grail knights as an authoritative spiritual guide and a symbol of the Eucharist. Previous critics have not recognized Perceval’s sister as a fundamental disruption to the systemic misogyny of the Morte or her Eucharistic significance. She challenges both the chivalric misogyny that sees her as an object of rescue and the …

"Good To Think With": Women And Exempla In Four Medieval And Renaissance English Texts, Jennifer Fish Pastoor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines four English texts—Beowulf; Ancrene Wisse; Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales’ Man of Law’s Tale and Second Nun’s Tale; and Richard Hyrde’s English translation, The Instruction of a Christen Woman, of Juan Luis Vives’ De Institutione Feminae Christianae—in terms of their use of exempla related to women. These texts all find women good “to think with,” to use, from The Body and Society, Peter Brown’s appropriation of Levi-Strauss’s famous wordplay. The ways in which these Old English, Middle English, and modern English texts portray women’s lives and bodies as a gateway into thought about the Christian life are also …

Staging Famine Irish Memories Of Migration And National Performance In Ireland And Québec, Jason King

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In "Staging Famine Irish Memories of Migration and National Performance in Ireland and Québec" Jason King examines recent community theater productions about the Irish Famine migration to Québec in 1847. King explores community-based and national ideas of performance and the role of remembrance in shaping and transmitting the diasporic identities of Québec's Irish cultural minority. While most of the plays re-enact French-Canadian adoptions of Famine orphans as spectacles of Irish integration in Québec, David Fennario's Joe Beef: (A History of Pointe Saint Charles) (1984, published 1991) rehearses the history of the Canadian/Québec nation in terms of recurrent labor exploitation epitomized …

Young People's Literature Of Algerian Immigration In France, Anne Schneider

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Young People's Literature of Algerian Immigration in France" Anne Schneider discusses questions of language, hybridity, and heritage in some works for young people published in France about Algeria and/or Algerian-French identity, by Leïla Sebbar, Jean-Paul Nozière, Azouz Begag, and Michel Piquemal. She argues for the need for an intercultural education at primary school that uses literature about immigration to highlight questions of place, belonging, exile and language. Schneider's focus is on Begag's Un train pour chez nous (2001) and Piquemal's Mon miel, ma douceur (2004). These texts use linguistic hybridity and an emphasis on common human experiences …

Introduction To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided for the introduction.

Minor Transnational Writing In Ireland, Borbála Faragó

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Minor Transnational Writing in Ireland" Borbála Faragó investigates the poetic work of some of Ireland's migrant writers through the lens of minor transnationalism. Ireland's peculiar migration history where there are two quite distinct groups of inward migrants, requires careful rethinking of terminology. Faragó proposes to circumnavigate the binary approach of investigating center versus periphery and instead look for lateral connections between marginalized groups. Reading the works of Ireland's internal others brings to the fore issues of authenticity, ethics, and identity that can foreground some of the ambiguities inherent in transnational studies today. Interpreting the oeuvre of these …

Thematic Bibliography To New Work On Immigration And Identity In Contemporary France, Québec, And Ireland, Dervila Cooke

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

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 …

An Oral History Of Homophobic Bullying In All-Deaf Schools And Mainstream Schools: The Experiences Of Deaf Lesbian And Gay Persons, Andrew D. Biskupiak

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

Deaf lesbian and gay individuals encounter homophobic bullying when receiving their high school education at all-deaf and/or mainstream schools, yet their experiences of homophobic bullying continue to be insufficiently documented and reported in the existing literature. Using oral history interviews with ten deaf lesbian (n=4) and gay students (n=6) attending Gallaudet University, this report documents the interviewees’ personal narratives of homophobic bullying in high school and examines the prevalence and impact of verbal and physical abuses as two forms of homophobic bullying. Patterns involve geographic location and public versus private mainstream schools. Further research could address types of mainstream schools; …

Tracing Variegated Streaks Of Feminism In The French Lieutenant’S Woman Through Pinteresque Jigsaw, Pushp Lata, Sanjay Kumar, Sonal Bhagat

Journal of International Women's Studies

Written for screen by one of the greatest English dramatists and Nobel Laureate, Harold Pinter and directed by Karel Reisz, the film The French Lieutenant’s Woman, appearing in 1981, is the cinematic adaptation of John Fowles’ novel by the same name that created ripples in the literary circles in 1969. Keeping in with the appreciation of the novel, the cinematic version of The French Lieutenant’s Woman too continued to capture the imagination of the classes and the masses alike bagging several prestigious awards. The proposed paper intends to study all these variegated shades and designs that further intensify the …

Social Media Advertising And Public Awareness: Touching The Lgbt Chord!, Gajendra Singh Chauhan, Tanu Shukla

Journal of International Women's Studies

Advertising is a form of persuasive communication with an audience. It is a promotional tool that helps in selling new ideas, products, and services through print, electronic and digital media. Advertising as one of the most influential components of mass communication is also strongly associated with social issues. In recent times, social media has acquired massive influence, providing an attractive and universal platform to every domain of businesses. Social Media has become an instrument to accelerate the process of change where it promotes social awareness and advertising in the society. As advertising mirrors the society, it strongly captures the changing …

Fetishizing Women: Advertising In Indian Television And Its Effects On Target Audiences, Madhusmita Das, Sangeeta Sharma

Journal of International Women's Studies

Advertising today has become the major driving force behind the various definitions of beauty. It is not “size-zero” models who are responsible for one version of female beauty, but models with skimpy clothes, fair skin, and bare midriffs who assume influential paradigmatic roles in society. Such practices become problematic for India as the standard of beauty appropriated by the media is highly westernized. With this background, the purpose of this study is to explore young girls’ perceptions of media pressure through the portrayal of ultra-thin beautiful models in Indian TV advertisements; and to discover the factors responsible for the internalization …

Rural Women Artists: A Visual Analysis Of The Mural Art Forms Of Santhal Pargana, Jharkhand, India, Pallavi Rani, D. Udaya Kumar, Saheb Ram Tudu, Shilpi Bora

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women are the pioneers of traditional mural art practices in rural India. Warli art, Gond art, and Madhubani paintings are examples of their artworks. The women belonging to the Santhal region in eastern India, are highly skilled in rich rural vernacular art. Murals are generally created by them during local festivals and marriage ceremonies. The women of six districts that comprise the Santhal Pargana (Dumka, Godda, Deoghar, Jamtara, Pakur and Sahibganj), decorate their mud houses during these occasions with visual borders and motifs.

A pilot study was carried out with the women artists to research these murals. The framework for …

Teaching Authorship, Gender And Identity Through Grrrl Zines Production, Sara Gabai

Journal of International Women's Studies

Zines are self- published, non-commercial magazines that range in size, form and genre, and that tackle the most disparate issues including stories from everyday life. While academia has been reluctant to bring zines within the classroom due to their non-academic layout, multitude of styles, broken grammar, strong tones and content, this paper explains what brings zines into existence and how the latter give girls and women a chance to produce and write culture while creating new spaces of resistance. It will also investigate the politics of writing, the contradictions in grrrl zines, and their potential in displacing the boundaries of …

Learning From The Past, Planning For The Future: Empowering Future Generations Of Women And Girls: A Keynote Address For The Second World Conference On Women’S Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 5, 2016, Diana Fox

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.