Arts and Humanities Commons^™

From Transcendentalism To Progressivism: The Making Of An American Reformer, Abby Morton Diaz (1821-1904)., Ann B. Cro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Author and activist Abby Morton Diaz (1821-1904) was a member of the Brook Farm Transcendental community from 1842 until it folded in 1847. Although critics have long recognized that Brook Farm played a role in Diaz's intellectual preparation, they have not attempted to demonstrate its influence through a study of her writings.

In this study I will examine in detail two of Diaz's novels and two long essays, with passing references to other works, that reveal how the utopian socialism practiced at Brook Farm influenced Diaz as a writer and reformer. In all her writings Diaz emphasized the importance of …

Oedipus' Wake: The (Neo-)Masculinization Of The Self In Late Twentieth-Century American Women's Memoir, Thomas Johnson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Without pretensions to exhaustiveness, this study briefly examines the mid- to late-twentieth-century flowering of western theory and criticism built around autobiographical writing and follows the feminist branch(es) of that theory and criticism through a reading of the following four memoirs: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, All the Lost Girls by Patricia Foster, Lying by Lauren Slater, and Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel. Using both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory as they relate to literature, I argue that the selves these four women write in their memoirs are not selves built around the model historically set for women by …

Family Affairs Newsletter 2006-05-01, Jean Vermette

Family Affairs newsletter (2004-2016)

FAMILY AFFAIRS was a free, twice-a-month, social activities newsletter for the GLBTQI (gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans/queer/intersex) community, sent out around the 1st and 15th of each month. It covered the State of Maine only. The list was begun and maintained for many years by Jean Vermette in Bangor, and later operated by Zack Paakkonen of Portland. Over the years it evolved from a social activities newsletter into a business directory, classified ad service, and community bulletin board.

Painted Faces And Picket Fences: One Woman’S Confrontation With Her Role In Society In Post-World War Ii America, Jillian Mullen

Senior Honors Projects

To counteract the potential harm vulnerable young men and women faced in a new age of postwar economic and social uncertainties, couples turned to the suburbs in unprecedented numbers as a place to raise their children in a safe and secure environment in the 1950s. Many turned to the home as an escape: a world in which they could live unaffected by the threat of nuclear war, radical politics (i.e. Communism) and more liberal definitions of female sexuality. Family was, in their minds, the one thing all Americans could rely on to be a guaranteed presence in their everyday lives. …

Women's And Gender Studies Newsletter, Spring 2006

Women's and Gender Studies Program: Information and Materials

This newsletter announces a name change in our program, from “Women’s Studies” to “Women’s and Gender Studies.” The Women’s Studies faculty voted to change the name of the program after more than a year of discussion and research. It took several more months for the proposal to work its way up the academic hierarchy, but now it is official. The new name better represents the research and teaching interests of many of the faculty and the direction of Women’s Studies nationally. It also represents a commitment to LGBTQ/ Sexuality Studies, now an approved minor which is administered through the Women’s …

Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles Of Women In The Italian, Lowland, And German Regions Of Western Europe From The Middle Ages To The Early Modern Period, Susan Papino

Senior Honors Projects

As the culture of the Middle Ages declined and Early Modern period characterized by a revival of humanistic ideals of the Renaissance commenced, the society of Western Europe underwent many changes. Different attitudes emerged concerning cultural values, and the medieval feudal way of life that has often been interpreted as being antiquated and obsolete gave way to more modern political, economic, and social systems. The question still remains, however, of exactly how women, an often underrepresented part of society, were affected by these so-called modernizing changes. The scope of this research is to basically address this question and examine the …

Review Of Queer Wars: The New Gay Right And Its Critics. Paul Robinson. Reviewed By Greg Mallon., Gerald P. Mallon

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Paul Robinson, Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. $25.00 hardcover.

Constructing Identity: Race, Class, Gender, And Sexuality In Nella Larsen’S Quicksand And Passing, Andrew W. Davis

English Honors Papers

This thesis explores the constructions of African American female identity in Nella Larsen’s two novels, Quicksand and Passing. It examines the textual representations of race, class, gender and sexuality and how these representations speak to the stereotypes of African American female identity prevalent in Harlem Renaissance literature and the wider literary canon. The first chapter shows the connection among constructing racial, gender and sexual identities by paralleling Quicksand’s protagonist’s plight to define her racial identity with her simultaneous struggle to obtain sexual autonomy. It concludes that Helga’s failure to achieve autonomy signifies the novel’s critique of the racism and misogyny …

The Day Of Silence: A Day Of Silent Protest For Glbt Issues Awareness At Uri, Danielle Towne

Senior Honors Projects

The Day of Silence is a day of silent protest for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender equal rights and treatment in schools. It has been in action annually since 1996 when students at the University of West Virginia decided to take action into their own creative hands. Now, 450,000 students from kindergarten to college spend their day in silence together. This hardly makes holding this program at the University of Rhode Island an original concept. However, for a school who has never observed such a day before and a school with a lack of GLBT involvement, this day could be …

“From Margin To Center”: Processes And Relationships To Participation One Woman’S Ethnographic Journey Mirrored Through Community Research, Melise D. Huggins

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the closing two years of my doctoral degree that spanned ten years of my life, I was asked by a mentor to write a personal essay on my academic experiences at the university. That essay follows and is printed here not without the accompanying editing that marshaled its own questioning, self-reflection and analysis that comes with distance, wisdom, and the editor of a juried journal.

I was concerned to give a revisionist accounting now, another five or six years after the writing of the essay, to explain what my perspective was then as a disaffected African- American ABD (all …

Don't Ask Don't Tell And The Uri Community, Justin Thames

Senior Honors Projects

When Bill Clinton and his staff introduced the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Bill(US Code 10) it created quite a controversy. The bill was designed to replace the then current system of asking for an individual’s sexual orientation on a military application thus making homosexuality a barrier to service in the United States Armed Forces. The bill was finally passed in 1993 and is meant to keep people in power from discriminating on the basis of homosexuality. This new law requires that no investigations be launched to identify the sexual orientation of a service member nor will hearsay be allowed to …

I Am What I Wear: The Use Of Dress In Constructing And Evaluating Sexual Identity, Jean Stevens

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This thesis explores different disciplinary studies and discussions of dress, and more specifically, the use of dress in constructing a gendered identity and sexual identity. To conduct this research, I performed a literature review and referenced various social psychological, sociological, and/or feminist theoretical frameworks. I argue that dress cannot serve as any sort of innate or accurate indicator of sexual identity; rather, the meanings associated with dress are socially produced and vary across time and place. Evidence for this argument emerges only after a literature review, as one can recognize a common theme linking the literature, or perhaps a commonly …

The Unknown Struggle : A Comparative Analysis Of Women In The Black Power Movement., Elizabeth Michele Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis comparatively analyzes the experiences and roles of women in the United States and Caribbean Black Power Movements. Using the Black Panther Party and Trinidadian National Joint Action Committee as case studies, the researcher isolates similarities and differences among women in these two regions of the African Diaspora. Black Feminist and Caribbean Feminist theoretical perspectives aide in understanding how the interlocking social forces of race, class, and gender impacted women participating in the Black Nationalist movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's.

"A Word Can Make All The Differences" : Translating Caribbean Feminist Discourse And Simone Schwarz-Bart's Pluie Et Vent Sur TéLuméE Miracle, Stacey Lynn Diliberto

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

How is a literary text—and the culture it represents—translated? Is the translated text a hindrance to the unique voice of an author, or is it beneficial for the circulation of the text in a culture that is not the author’s own? Must the translator be an insider to the author’s culture, or can any translator take up the task of interpretation? This thesis seeks to investigate these questions by examining the English translation of Simone Schwarz - Bart’s Pluie et Vent Sur Télumée Miracle. Barbara Bray, the translator of Pluie et Vent, renames the book in English as The Bridge …

Feminist Theory And The Right-Wing: Shiv Sena Women Mobilize Mumbai, Tarini Bedi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Feminist scholars engaged in the study of women and religion often grapple with the problem of how to theorize the phenomenon of women’s attraction to, and active involvement in politico-religious movements characterized by strongly “patriarchal” authority structures, and by ideologies that either seem to denigrate women or assign them to subordinate social and symbolic roles. This paper looks at some of the approaches that have been taken by feminist scholars to this issue. It reviews some key adaptations of feminist theory to the rising phenomena of women’s public participation in religious, right-wing agendas. It specifically explores the relevance of feminist …

Labor Stress And Nursing Support: How Do They Relate?, Lubna Abushaikha, Eileen P. Sheil

Journal of International Women's Studies

Selected aspects of the phenomenon of labor stress including the relationship between labor stress and nursing support were explored using a correlational design with 85 postpartum women who delivered vaginally and were recruited from a Midwestern general hospital in the United States. The Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire measured labor stress while the Bryanton Adaptation of the Nursing Support in Labor Questionnaire measured nursing support during labor. Significant positive correlations were found between number of labor hours and labor stress (r = .25, p = .020) and number of labor hours and number of labor procedures (r = .23, p = …

Two Poems, Zenobia Chan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Two Poems by Zenobia Chan

• a bowl of beef balls rice noodle soup
• God please keep my parents alive

Cultural Analysis Of The Indian Women's Festival Of Karvachauth, Puja Sahney

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The festival of Karvachauth is celebrated by upper class married women of North India and occurs in the month of October or early November. On this day married women fast to ensure the long lives of their husbands. They wake up before dawn and eat a meal. After sunrise they do not drink water or eat any food until they see the moon at night. The moon is watched through a sieve and prayed to before breaking the fast. An important part of Karvachauth is a ritual that is performed by women in the afternoon. This ritual is hosted by …

Family Caregiving To Aids Patients: The Role Of Gender In Caregiver Burden In Uganda, Walter Kipp, Denis Tindyebwa, Ednah Karamagi, Tom Rubaale

Journal of International Women's Studies

The objectives of the study were: 1) What is the burden of care for male and female family caregivers of AIDS patients? and 2) Which factors influence the family care burden for AIDS patients at home? A questionnaire was completed by 29 male and 91 female family caregivers of AIDS patients living in four rural areas in western Uganda. Participating caregivers were selected from a patient list of the home-based care program for AIDS patients and then interviewed. The responses from the questionnaire were used to calculate care burden scores for caregivers of both genders and the scores in each …

Restorative Justice For The Girl Child In Post-Conflict Rwanda, Clara Chapdelaine Feliciati

Journal of International Women's Studies

The girl child suffers from both sexism and “childism” for she is at the intersection of women’s rights and children’s rights. The question of her fate in post-conflict Rwanda is particularly crucial for during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, she suffered egregious sexual violence based on gender regardless of her age. Not only were two-year old girls raped, but there was a clear intention to make women and girls suffer differently from men and boys: while the latter were killed rapidly with a single shot or machete stroke, girl children and women were mutilated, tortured and left to die slowly. …

Tactics Against Sexual Harassment: The Role Of Backfire, Greg Scott, Brian Martin

Journal of International Women's Studies

To oppose sexual harassment, it is useful to understand tactics commonly used by perpetrators. A useful approach to tactics is through the concept of backfire: if an action is perceived as unjust and information about it is communicated to receptive audiences, it has the capacity to cause outrage and consequently backfire on the perpetrator. Perpetrators regularly use five types of tactics to inhibit outrage: (1) cover-up of the action; (2) devaluation of the target; (3) reinterpretation of the events; (4) use of official channels to give the appearance of justice; and (5) intimidation and bribery of targets, witnesses and others. …

Perceptions And Reflections On Sexual Harassment In Jamaica, Jimmy Tindigarukayo

Journal of International Women's Studies

Within the context of gender inequality that pertains to the Caribbean region generally, this study examines and analyzes two surveys on sexual harassment in Jamaica. The first survey was conducted in June/July 1999 by the Committee against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace, intended to solicit information from public sector employees on their perception and opinions on sexual harassment at work place. The second survey was conducted among 44 organization in Jamaica during the month of January 2005 by the author, in association with the Bureau of Women’s Affairs of the Government of Jamaica, intended to attain three objectives: to ascertain …

Generations, Feminist Beliefs And Abortion Rights Support, Terri Susan Fine

Journal of International Women's Studies

Do forces that impacted feminist beliefs in the past, such as gender and generation, impact feminist beliefs today within the context of abortion policy support? While the abortion rights issue was framed during the feminist movement era as a feminist issue, it is now clearly framed along partisan and ideological lines. Public opinion on issues that percolated through the feminist movement and identified as feminist issues in the past may no longer be viewed as feminist issues today. The abortion rights issue was chosen because of the oft-held perception that it is solely a women’s issue. The strong association of …

Blood Vengeance And The Depiction Of Women In La Leyenda De Los Siete Infantes De Lara, The Nibelungenlied And Njal’S Saga, Teresa Camacho

Journal of International Women's Studies

Following a review of the primary sources La leyenda de los siete infantes de Lara, The Nibelungenlied and Njal’s Saga the role of women and their role in exacting blood vengeance within a medieval context will be compared. The analysis is based upon the primary sources as well as some Spanish legal precedents and this is the basis for the comparative study and the roots in Germanic law of some aspects of medieval Spanish law.

On The Asphalt Frontier: American Women’S Road Narratives, Spatiality, And Transgression, Alexandra Ganser

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this article, I am going to analyze the concept of “gendered space” as it appears in select post-1970s US-American road narratives produced by women writers of various ethnic and social backgrounds. Drawing on recent re-mappings in cultural geography, I will cross disciplinary boundaries and argue that for female literary protagonists, the “open road” appears as a dangerous frontier—in which women’s physical and emotional well-being is always at perilous stake—rather than as an adventurous playground. In women’s road stories, the American highway does not maintain its mythical, iconic status, signifying freedom and the heroic quest for identity, which has been …

I Prostrate To The Goddess Foe Destroyer – Tibetan Buddhism And The (Mis)Naming Of Venusian Features, Kristine Larsen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Despite the multicultural intent of the IAU’s charge, the serious lack of Eastern representation in the membership of this supposedly international organization has serious repercussions for the naming of Venusian surface features. As this paper will demonstrate, the criteria used in naming eight Venusian features after “Tibetan Buddhist goddesses” is inconsistent and ambiguous at best, and clearly erroneous at worst. The attempt to pigeonhole Tibetan Buddhist iconographic representations of the feminine principle into a Western model fails because of what is posited to be a serious lack of understanding by the WGPSN of Tibetan Buddhist culture and beliefs. It will …

La Loca And Manicomio: Representations Of Women Insanity During The Golden Age Of Mexican Films, Andrés Ríos Molina

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay analyzes two films produced during the Golden Age of Mexican Films (1931-1960) in order to explore the social structuring of women’s insanity. Both films deal with the scientific knowledge—the advice of psychiatrists was part of the productions—as well as with the symbolic references pervading Mexican society to understand the causes, symptoms and treatment of women’s insanity. These social imaginaries of women’s psychopathologies were marked by gender references which delimited what a woman should or should not be. In order to know how women’s insanity was taken into the big screen in Mexico during the middle of the Twentieth …

Surviving The Doctoral Dissertation Experience: The N.W. Sisters’ Study, Patricia J. Mcilveen, Monica R. George, Sharon L. Voss, Ada Laguardia

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this year-long study was to examine and describe both the individual and shared experiences of a group of four women as they went through their Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) program. The main research question was: What do you perceive as the factors that were integral to your achieving success in the doctoral program? Data from this qualitative case study were gathered through group interview sessions. Subsequent analysis of interview transcripts revealed the following factors that were integral to achieving success: sense of humor, family values, empathy, perseverance, spirituality, accountability to the group, collaboration, good advisors, ability to …

Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea: Internally Displaced Women And Girls In Liberia And Uganda And The Role Of The International Community, Cassandra Veney

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article provides a brief background on the civil war in Liberia and the ongoing political violence in Uganda that have left thousands of people internally displaced, especially woman and girls. It analyzes the willing and unwilling roles of women and girls in both conflicts as combatants, wives, and rape survivors, etc. It discusses how women’s bodies became an extension of the battlefield as all participants in the conflict perpetrated gross human rights violations against women and girls in the forms of rapes, gang rapes, torture, and beatings. These violations have forced many women and girls, especially in Liberia to …

To Marry A Dog, June Leavitt

Journal of International Women's Studies

I was the photographer/ journalist on an international medical education team, sponsored by The Center for Asian and International Bioethics of Ben Gurion University of the Negev that went to Kadalur, in Tamil Nadu, India to teach rural Untouchable women basic mother and child health care. Two violations of human rights which came to my attention, one an Untouchable child’s, and one an Untouchable widow’s are the focus of this documented photographic essay which explores the historical, social and religious roots of the repression of the Untouchables of India today.

Though male Untouchables are certainly victims of this oppression, female …