Digital Commons Network^™

A Feminist Narrative Shaped By Bangladesh’S Threads, Salma Akter

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the intersection of feminist theory and artistic practice, examining how materiality and abstraction reflect gender norms within the socio-political, religious, and colonial context of Bangladesh. It is grounded in four key theoretical frameworks: judith butler’s gender performativity, bell hooks’ intersectional feminism, julia kristeva’s abjection and systems theory. Together, these frameworks provide a comprehensive lens for analyzing how gender inequality is constructed, maintained, and resisted within the socio-political, religious, and colonial context of Bangladesh. Textile-based media serve as a means to engage with these layered systems, drawing from traditional nakshi kantha embroidery to explore patterns of labor, domesticity, …

Metalepsis And Mental Castration: Doki Doki Literature Club As The Cerebral Monstrous-Feminine, Hannah Graham

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Doki Doki Literature Club! is a horror visual novel masquerading as a dating simulation game. Behind the thin veneer of pretty girls in tiny skirts and tight uniforms lurk horrors, glitches, and metaleptic events that take the player’s battle for agency beyond mere point-and-click interactions. This fight breaches containment to the level of the physical, as the player must literally wrestle for control with an in-game character who has commandeered their entire computer system. Players are led to believe that they are making the decisions that further the plot, but come to learn that in this world, there is no …

A Monstrous [Un]-Becoming: Defining The Final Boy, Rhys Crumpton

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Through an exploration of horror theory, monster theory, queer theory, and disabilities studies, this thesis defines a 21st century archetype within the serial horror narrative, known as “the Final Boy.” This character is a manifestation of a queer, often neurodivergent man in peril at the hands of a monstrous society. This harmful socionormativity is narratively represented by a monster wearing the face of a man, one whom the Final Boy must subdue and overcome if he wishes to survive. The seven tenets found in this project highlight the fluctuating morality the Final Boy is forced to engage in per the …

Apocalyptic Technical Communication From Clockface To Briefcase: Revealing The Spurious Coin Of Nuclear-Security Rhetoric, Ryan Cheek

English and Technical Communication Faculty Research & Creative Works

This article the Doomsday Clock and the Nuclear Football as interconnected technical communication artifacts that function as two sides of a "spurious coin" in the securitization of nuclear deterrence. While the Clock externalizes existential risk through apocalyptic rhetoric, the Football internalizes it within exclusive military command structures—together legitimizing perpetual nuclear crisis. Drawing on technical communication scholarship and critical security studies, the analysis argues that both artifacts sustain nuclearist ideology by reinforcing deterrence as common sense. The Clock's ominous countdown and the Football's ever-present launch capability are mutually validating and together normalize nuclear brinkmanship as the price of global security.

Reject Modernity, Embrace Tradition: Unpacking Gender Roles In Social Media Performances Of "The Good Life", Lauren Mar

Scripps Senior Theses

What do JD Vance, tradwife influencers, and the “sprinkle sprinkle” movement have in common? They all have something to do with the increasing popularity of an apparent return to traditional gender roles. This thesis is an intersectional investigation of women’s gender roles in relation to class and race as they appear in different performances of “the good life” on social media. Through a series of personal essays, this thesis explores how these media examples represent a deeper political unhappiness with present conditions. This thesis takes the time to unpack the different sides of discourse surrounding each subject, and counters the …

Let's Talk About Sex: Investigating Radical Feminist Theories On Prostitution In The United States, Anna E. Peterson

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the feminist debates surrounding prostitution through an analysis of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin’s abolitionist theories, juxtaposed with critiques from Wendy Brown, Janet Halley, Susie Bright, and Marxist feminist abolitionist Esperanza Fonseca. The text examines the systemic forces of patriarchy and capitalism that commodify women’s bodies and the challenges of legislative approaches to the sex trade. While MacKinnon and Dworkin identify the structural inequalities underpinning prostitution, their legislative proposals often fail to address the stigma and systemic conditions that perpetuate the marginalization of prostituted people. Critics like Brown and Halley highlight the limitations of punitive measures, calling …

"Girl, So Confusing": Tiktok Tweens, Technology, And The Authentic Self, Emily R. Dietrick

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the American tween as a postfeminist subject within the context of youth cultural production on TikTok, responding to the recent resurgence of concern about the young girls’ body in popular discourse. The first chapter will explore the origins of the tween as the marketing industry category previously known as the subteen, particularly through the lens of tween media culture and postfeminist narratives of choice and authenticity in identity formation. The second chapter will analyze the current technological facets of TikTok with attention to the For You page, algorithm, user-generated content, and influencer self-branding. This will demonstrate how …

True Crime Podcasts As A Scene Of Feminist Reckoning: A Comparative Analysis Of My Favorite Murder And Sistas Who Kill, Rachel C.C. Matteri

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research examines the cultural impact and ethical implications of true crime podcasts (TCPs). In recent years, TCPs have become a powerful cultural force, with White women often emerging as the primary storytellers and most visible participants in the genre. Their dominance in this space is not neutral and it carries representational weight. It explores the potential for feminist activity made possible by the auditory, self-publishing genre of podcasting. This work focuses on the buddy-comedy subgenre of TCPs. The concerns of this text are that TCPs are dominated by White feminist values and are not an intersectional feminist project. Textual …

Voices To Faces: The Midnight Cowboy’S Picaresque Journey, Dave Patterson

Anthós

John Schlesinger’s 1969 film, Midnight Cowboy, tells the story of Joe Buck, a Texan who dreams of working as a hustler in New York. Schlesinger’s resulting tale follows the framework of the picaresque, wherein a naive rube ventures to the big city to pursue a better life and exposes societal ills along the way. In this article, Patterson reveals how Joe Buck’s internal tension derives from his materialism, symbolized as disembodied voices, and his devaluing of human connection and empathy, symbolized as faces. The voices from his radio’s advertisements and game shows reinforce his flawed assumptions about life. A midpoint …

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 ‘Normal’ Life”: Red Dwarf, Temporality, And The Neuroqueer Absurd, Gretchen B. Graf

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The science fiction series Red Dwarf, beginning in 1988 and broadcasting sporadically over the past nearly four decades, takes place more than three million years in the future where human beings have gone extinct. All, that is, except one; the show’s central character, Dave Lister, is the last known living human being in the universe, outliving humanity by remaining in stasis during a radiation leak that killed the rest of the crew of the titular mining ship. Besides Lister, the narrative also focuses on the nonhuman beings that keep him company. Besides residing in the genre of science fiction, …

Phantasma, Grace Wright

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Ever since the infamous Ides of March, scholars have been debating the true psychology behind Brutus’s betrayal. The purpose of this project is to take a step back from the politicized motivations and explore the emotional, strenuous conditions of Julius Caesar’s assassination. This project will transform William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar into a novella with its central focus on the relationship dynamics between the key figures of Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius. The intention of the novella is to not only analyze the play through a critical queer lens, but to interrogate the themes of violence and desire that surround male relationships …

Coming Out To My Christian Loved Ones: Online Workshop Effectiveness For Increasing Lgbtq+ Individuals And Lgbtq+ Ally Communication Efficacy And Impacts On Personal-Enacted Identity Gaps, Samantha Renee Leggett-Bradley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

It is not uncommon for passages from the Christian Bible to produce schisms in families, friendships, mentorships, workplace relationships, individual churches, and denominations. These challenging conversations are often around LGBTQ+ topics. Many marginalized LGBTQ+ individuals and allies in these spaces become outgroup members who feel insecure and less confident enacting aspects of their own identities or identities they support. A lack of communication efficacy for how to navigate LGBTQ+ related conversations with Christian loved ones may lead to detrimental physical, mental, and emotional outcomes.

This study surveyed 134 LGBTQ+ individuals and allies as well as conducted semi structured interviews with …

The Reel Narrative: The Portrayal And Consequent Archetypes Of Women In Selected Mainstream Philippine Romantic Cinema, Ma. Beatrice P. Pilar, Nathaniel Rey D. Ferrer

Sinaya: A Philippine Journal for Senior High School Teachers and Students

In Philippine society, media, particularly romance films, shapes and reinforces audiences’ perspectives, perpetuating preconceived notions and stereotypical beliefs. However, there is a lack of textual analysis within Filipino films, especially regarding female representation in media. Hence, our study explores the portrayal of female main characters in romance films. Textual film analysis, grounded in Carl Jung’s Jungian archetypes and Jean Shinoda Bolen’s female archetypes in media, was implemented on the six Filipino highest-grossing romance films from 2014 until 2019. This analysis, further supported by a feminist lens, aimed to identify the character portrayal and archetypes of the main female characters in …

Reading As Lesbian, Reading As Trans* And Thinking Intergenerationally, Katherine Binhammer

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

Written from the perspective of a critic who came of age in the queer 1990s, this essay considers the generational difference in understandings of Charlotte Charke as a butch lesbian and a transman. It argues that the history of sexuality demands an intergenerational reading practice because our objects are always engaged in a history of the present.

Teaching Margaret Cavendish Through The Lens Of Scientific Anti-Realism, Kevin Lower

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

Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) only began receiving sustained attention by historians of philosophy in recent decades, but she is being rapidly integrated into the early modern philosophical canon. This essay explores one dimension of teaching Cavendish that presents difficulties for introductory philosophy students: her criticisms of experimental philosophy. Section one explains how I integrate Cavendish into the narrative of my course, identifying both historical and thematic strategies for including her in introductory philosophy courses. Section two describes methods for teaching Cavendish’s natural philosophy and identifies a pedagogical challenge to presenting her criticisms of experimental philosophy. In their first exposure to Cavendish, …

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 …

Hauntings Of Publication Deaths, Possibilities For Our Academic Present, Kathleen (Kaye) A. Hare, Amber Moore

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this paper, we use a feminist dialogue to query publication deaths that haunt us. We ruminate on respective past publications that remain unread and uncited, despite encapsulating defining events in our development as scholars. For Author Kaye Hare this was an affective narrative that troubled a seemingly ideal moment of public scholarship; for Author Amber Moore, this was a hard-fought analysis of precarious intersectional feminist resistance in popular culture. Inspired by the horror-film genre “spectral incognizance,” we methodologically deploy a multivocal dialogical structure based on multiple revisitings that attenuate anxieties of metaphorical publication death, before revealing that this death …

Estha And Trans Identity In The God Of Small Things, Clara Reid

Critical Humanities

Gender relationships in The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy change over the course of the book. In many ways, gender and caste are inseparable from one another in how they interact; it is Estha who bridges the gap between both. Whether consciously or subconsciously, he engages in this transgressive behavior in order to become his sister Rahel. This essay positions Estha as a trans woman longing for a becoming, and it is through his successful pursuit of Rahel in both a queer and psychoanalytic sense that he becomes a woman. This pursuit manifests through transgressive behavior, putting him …

This Will Not Be Generative, Sehrish Naudhani

Intersections: Critical Issues in Education

This Will Not Be Generative by Dixa Ramírez-D’Oleo critiques Western feminist narratives, revealing how concepts like generativity and symbiosis often disguise violence against Black and Indigenous communities. Through analysis of works by feminists such as Donna Haraway and references to films like Get Out and Midsommar, Ramírez-D’Oleo argues that Black and Indigenous lives are cyclically exploited to uphold white supremacy. Rather than depicting these communities as mere victims, she emphasizes their resilience and acts of resistance. This review underscores Ramírez-D’Oleo's call to rethink the narratives shaping our understanding of race, ecology, and feminism, making it a critical read for …

Good For Her: Catharsis And Empowerment In Contemporary Literature, Jessica Lynn Vaught

Online Theses and Dissertations

A recent trend in readership within online discourse communities is the emergence of the genre called “Good for Her,” which contains themes of transgression beyond traditional expectations of socially acceptable feminine behavior by situating revenge arcs to celebrate actions that otherwise would have been perceived as reprehensible. The emergence and popularity of the genre in the post-2016 sociopolitical climate in the United States reflects the demand for marginalized communities to see versions of themselves represented in texts in which the protagonist avenges herself in the face of patriarchal oppression. The genre stems from canonical literary tropes also created in the …

Do Clothes Make The Feminist?, Jiana N. Smith

Capstones

In September 2024, New York fashion brand Sandy Liang faced backlash online for its girlish style codes as part of a broader debate about trends that reinforced gender stereotypes, like tradwives, “girl dinner” and the coquette aesthetic. However, critics misjudge the brand, which is grounded not in internet trends but in the designer’s real-world experiences. In addition, thanks to the complex fashion landscape, no garment is inherently political but dependent on the wearer’s intentions and styling choices.

LINK: https://medium.com/@jiana.smith80/does-clothing-make-the-feminist-62ae6ec8f063

Is Sexyy Red Minstrelsy, Or Are We Overreacting?, Malik Brizan-Reed

Capstones

This criticism piece explores the controversial female rapper Sexyy Red. It challenges negative perspectives about her persona, primarily based on respectability politics. It highlights Sexyy Red's ability to capitalize on a moment and business savviness. The article has themes of racial double standards and classism. Sexyy Red is more than the "ghetto Black girl," aesthetic. She's a mother and entrepreneur who is authentic to herself.

Más Que Pedalear: Mujeres Deliveristas En Nueva York Equilibran Cuidado, Trabajo Y Sus Cuerpos, Mariana Navarrete Villegas

Capstones

In New York City, immigrant women delivery workers face unique challenges as they juggle the care duties of their families and the demands of a grueling job. They endure harassment, navigate unsafe conditions, and adapt their work routines to their menstrual cycles—all while confronting limited support networks. This article profiles the experiences of four women who rely on delivery work for its flexibility but remain largely excluded from male-dominated labor activism. These women’s stories reveal the systemic inequities in the gig economy, from the lack of gender-specific protections to the marginalization of women’s voices in advocacy efforts. Amidst these struggles, …

Political Posters, Periperformativity, And Power: An Analysis Of The Connections Between An Activist Movement's Image And Sound, Adeline Navarro

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This essay argues that we can gain a better understanding of the relationship between ACT UP’s image and sound, specifically its political posters and subsequent chants, by using Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s theory of periperformativity to examine the periperformative dimension of these chants and thus the power they lend ACT UP members during civil disobedience demonstrations. Second, it argues that the periperformative has the capacity to register historical change because it is an instance of, we-work.

Design(Ing) Disruptions: Towards Intimacies Between Feminist Situated Knowledge, Gossip And Design, Senjuti Sangia

Masters Theses

This project highlights and problematizes the knowledge traditions and politics foundational to problem-solving paradigms in design education and practice. By emphasising the ontological nature and turn in design (Willis, 2006, Fry, 2012) , this thesis critically appraises the aforesaid formulations by extending intersectional feminist theories to dominant design epistemology. Drawing on the sociological framing of the matrix of domination, I investigate the dichotomy of the designer and user- as designers, users, and communities find themselves at different junctions in the matrix of domination. Further, I critique design frameworks from the analytical lenses of feminist situated knowledge, In so doing, I …

It's Going To Be Okay: Experiences And Perceptions Of People Who Seek Reassurance At Work, Liana Bernard

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the experiences and perceptions of people who seek reassurance at work using a mixed methods (focus groups and experimental) approach. Reassurance-seeking is an attempt to elicit supportive communication from another person to help one reduce experienced anxiety. First, using focus groups with 32 participants, this study found that people seeking reassurance at work develop complex cognitive structures to reduce the prospective negative impacts of reassurance-seeking behaviors, particularly for those with marginalized identities. Then, in a 3x2 between-person experimental design in which employee gender and reassurance-seeking were manipulated, participants read a transcript of an interaction between an employee …

Accounting For The Harms Of Image-Based Sexual Abuse In Ireland’S Harassment, Harmful Communications And Related Offences Act, Lorraine J. Hayman

Journal of International Women's Studies

With the ubiquitousness of technology and advancements in Artificial Intelligence image manipulation, Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA) is increasing worldwide. IBSA refers to the creation and/or distribution of sexual images without consent or the threat to create or distribute such images. Technological developments make it challenging to keep pace with the nature and extent of technology-facilitated crimes and their harms. In this paper, I utilise a feminist lens to examine and synthesise the existing literature on IBSA and its harms. Using this synthesis, I critically analyse the Republic of Ireland’s Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act (HHCRO), colloquially called Coco’s …

Bridging The Gap: An Action Research Pilot Study On Confidence Building For Women Design Students In Higher Education, Pia Mcfindlay, Ashton Margarete Moseley, Oratile Rose Mokgatla

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women are significantly underrepresented in the design industry globally, particularly in tech-driven industries like industrial design, despite an increasing number of women design graduates. While there are various factors that influence this underrepresentation, recent studies identify a general lack of confidence among women as a major contributing aspect. Women students tend to have lower self-assessments compared to their male peers, leading to limiting behaviours and barriers to pursuing opportunities in tech-based fields, which thus perpetuates gender disparity in design fields and STEAM. To address this disparity, the Industrial Design department at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa launched the …

Gender Inequality In The House Of God: Comparing Islam And Traditional Religions In Yorubaland And Lome In West Africa, Habibat Oladosu-Uthman

Journal of International Women's Studies

Comparative studies on gender among Muslims and worshippers of other traditional religions in West Africa are limited in number. The paper makes use of a combination of social sciences and humanistic research instruments through structured interviews and participant observation to study gender politics within Islam, Vodun (a traditional religion in Lome, Togo), and Sàngό (or Shango, one of the deities in Yoruba culture) in Western Africa. This study reveals that gender inequality transcends all barriers, be it the profane or the sacred. In fact, in large parts of West African societies where traditional and Islamic norms and values hold sway, …