Arts and Humanities Commons^™

"May We Be Buried Alive Together": Towards An Intersectional Feminist True Crime Praxis, Alexandra White

Pomona Senior Theses

Most mainstream true crime narratives revolve around a corpse. It is usually the body of a woman. The body is most often white. Not always, but in the cultural imaginary, she is blonde. She comes from a good family. She was a sweet girl. What happened to her? While this question haunts the general public, it also animates true crime communities as the victim becomes a symbol of innocence, a site of spectacular violence, and evidence of the incomprehensible extreme of human behavior. The question brings (primarily) white, cis women true crime fans together in the name of fascination, fear, …

"And All Were Welcome": An Analysis Of The Transgender Child In Contemporary Picture Books, Isaac Prestwich

Pomona Senior Theses

This paper constitutes an interrogation of children’s picture books that feature trans and gender non-conforming child protagonists. In these books, the audience, presumed to be a child, whose experience of the narrative is mediated through the adult or older figure reading the picture book, is brought to empathize and identify with the book’s characters, whether they be the protagonist themselves, or those auxiliary figures who surround the main character. My goal is to identify consistent themes across the genre, as well as within the field of critical childhood studies, particularly as they pertain to the rhetorical value of the Child, …

La Terreur Insidieuse : Une Relecture De La Logique De L'Esclavage Dans Ourika, Joslyn Gardner

Pomona Senior Theses

Slavery is commonly characterized by its exceptional violence. La Terreur insidieuse reveals how the physically brutal domination associated with slavery was transformed and reconfigured into a form of benevolence in the novel, Ourika, by Claire de Duras. It has generally been accepted by critics, such as Joan DeJean, Françoise Massardier-Kenney, and Adeline Koh that le Chevalier de B “saved Ourika from the terrible fate of slavery” (Massardier-Kenney 191). However, I argue that Ourika was not rescued from captivity, rather she experiences a benign form of domination, cruelty shrouded as love, which works to render her docile.

I first explore …

Hannah Gadsby’S Nanette: Connection Through Comedy, Sheila Lintott

Faculty Journal Articles

Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018) is a brilliant and masterful work of comedy in which Gadsby announces she is quitting comedy. In this article, I draw on classical and contemporary humor theory to explore the comedic content of Nanette and critique Gadsby’s reasons for quitting. Although I largely agree with Gadsby’s concerns about comedy, I argue that the very show in which she presents them, Nanette, stands as evidence against their universal truth. Gadsby argues that comedy is no longer conducive to her health for at least three related reasons. First, the selfdeprecatory comedy out of which she has built her …

The House And The Infected Body: The Metonomy Of Resident Evil 7, Alan Mcgreevy, Christina Fawcett, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

Resident Evil 7, in articulating the threat of infectious mold, situates the illness with the feminine: Historical, cultural, and physiological connections between mold and women gives the game license to limit, objectify, and render the female characters monstrous. First-person immersion brings us into contact with the infection, as mold and Molded threaten the buildings of the Bakers, while mold growing in their brains threatens the Bakers themselves. Through the form of infection, the disease is invasively feminine, reflected in the Bakers and their homes.

Creating Jewish Mothers: A Feminist Ethnographic Investigation Of The Mothers Circle Of Coastal Virginia And The Interfaith Parents Circle, Amy K. Milligan

Women's & Gender Studies Faculty Publications

This feminist ethnographic investigation of the Mothers Circle of Coastal Virginia and the Interfaith Parents Circle utilizes the lens of feminist folkloristics to analyze the role that women have had in the foundation and evolution of the groups. Ultimately, this essay argues that the Mothers Circle of Coastal Virginia / Interfaith Parents Circle create a space for women to navigate the tensions faced by southern Jews; that they center Jews-by-choice and non-Jewish mothers parenting Jewish children by creating safe spaces for caregivers; and that, through a horizontal peer education model, these groups offer a sustainable and transferable model of programing …

Going Beyond Book Displays: Providing Safe Spaces For Lgbtq Youth, Lisa Gay-Milliken, Jeffrey Discala

STEMPS Faculty Publications

School libraries should be a space where students of all ages feel welcome and safe. I (Lisa) can speak from experience when I say this is not always the case, not in the 1980s and not today. Even in the school library, a place I now cherish, I was fearful of ridicule and harassment. I was frustrated because I did not see myself—a young, questioning, and confused lesbian—in any of the books. Gay and lesbian characters didn’t exist on those high school shelves. “But that was the 1980s,” you say. It hasn’t gotten much better for much of the LGBTQ …

Black Women's Voluntary Use Of Mental Health Services, Dr. Natasha Wright

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

According to the American Psychiatric Association, Black women engage in formal mental health services at a lower rate than White men and women. In addition, the issues faced by Black women engaging in mental health services are multiplicative, major, and often divisive. Much of the research to date has centered on the barriers to, and negative experiences of, Black women in mental health. Grounded in critical race theory and Black womanist thought, this study investigated the lived experiences of Black women who voluntarily engaged in mental health services. The study included a purposive sample of 6 Black women from 2 …

Curious Natures: Constructing Queer Ecologies In Early America, Richard Lee Parmer Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--English

This dissertation argues that early American writers often constructed queer ecologies in order to naturalize Anglo-American civilization and justify its expansion into Native American territories. Since there is so little textual evidence on the subject, the major challenge to studying sexuality in early America is approaching sexuality studies creatively—to broaden both our understanding of what counts as sexual discourse and our frameworks for analyzing it. My dissertation addresses this challenge through what many ecocritical scholars of sexuality call queer ecology. In their groundbreaking anthology on the topic, Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erikson remind us that, historically and in the present, …

The Mothman And Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse In Online Social Media Communities, Brenton Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Little work has been conducted on the intersections of queer and Appalachian identities, in part because these two identities are viewed as incompatible (Mann 2016). This study uses a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach to examine the Instagram posts of the Queer Appalachia Project, which represent a substantial body of discourse created by and for queer Appalachians. Of specific interest to this analysis are those posts which employ folkloric figures, such as West Virginia’s Mothman, to do identity work that is queer, Appalachian, and queer-Appalachian. Often, this act is accomplished through juxtaposition with Appalachian imagery and the reclamation of homophobic …

El Bildungsroman Femenino Mexicano: Nuevas Perspectivas De La Novela De Formación Femenina Fronteriza, Yorki Junior Encalada Egúsquiza

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

The late 20^th and early 21^st centuries have not only favored a steady growth in Chicana literary production but have also revealed an alternative identity of the Mexican American border woman, the meXicana. Rosa Linda Fregoso, in MeXicana Encounters (2003), coins and defines this term as “the interface between Mexicana and Chicana,” and employs it to examine the experiences and representations of Mexicanas and Chicanas without eliminating the differences between them. This study borrows this term but uses it specifically to describe North American women of Mexican origin whose identities and border-crossing experiences make it difficult to solely …

"If You're Ugly, The Blackpill Is Born With You": Sexual Hierarchies, Identity Construction, And Masculinity On An Incel Forum Board, Josh Segalewitz

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

The manosphere is one new digital space where antifeminists and men's rights activists interact outside of their traditional social networks. Incels, short for involuntary celibates, exist in this space and have been labeled as extreme misogynists, white supremacists, and domestic terrorists. This project aims to understand discussions happening among incels and situate them within social understandings of masculinity. I downloaded 4,532 threads posted on incels.is and randomly sampled 100 for analysis. Through grounded coding methodology, I identified the importance of making meaning of manhood on this site, particularly with respect to sexuality. Further, I found that incel ideology rests on …

(In)Security: Gendered And Bordered, Mary Mcloughlin

Joyce Durham Essay Contest in Women's and Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Gendered Discourses In The American Tv Sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Ee Wern Chin

Student Works (2020-2029)

The current research concentrates on analysing the gendered discourse in the television (TV) series of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, investigating how gender is portrayed as it depicts a representable degree of society today. The proposed findings are information as to how this sitcom reflects the gendered discourses that were common in that time and are still relevant today. This paper considers how sitcom creators want their audiences to be able to relate to what is shown on their programme, making it relatable to the audience, creating the problem of possible bias from the creators supporting stereotypes that only encourages the same mindset amongst …

They Have Names, Too: A Case Study On The First Five Victims Of The Green River Killer: Examining The Construction Of Society And Its Creation Of Victim Availability, Natalie V. Castillo

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

This case study follows the example of Rubenhold (2019) to examine the lives of the first five women killed by the Green River Killer, to give the victims a voice to tell their stories that Ridgway robbed from them, and to identify the social constructs that influence victim availability. To explore this issue, the study analyzed multiple sources of information: archival sources, monographs, articles, websites, and newspapers. In analyzing the effects of their upbringing—family history, educational backgrounds, and personal lives—this research will clarify the role that these factors played regarding where they spent their last day alive.

Using an intersectional …

'Tis Pity She’S A Man: Cross-Cast Prospero In Shakespeare’S The Tempest, Leah Dooley

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

“Who Wants To Live Forever?” Andrew Holleran, Garth Greenwell, And The Gayest Decade That Never Ended, John C. Hawley

English

James Baldwin’s remarkable second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956) influenced all subsequent gay writing—not only in its themes, but also in its tone. Paying frequent homage to that book, Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance and other fiction of the Eighties taught gay men how to be gay, and the melancholic tone these novels created persisted for decades to come, exemplified most recently in Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You (2016). An unexpressed loss imbues the work of David Leavitt, Edmund White, Larry Kramer, Michael Cunningham, and Alan Hollinghurst, but the argument here is that more recent protagonists are, if anything, …

The Power Of Artistic Activism, Julio Hanson

Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study highlights the ability of artistic activists to utilize art for political, creative, and social change. Artistic activism is a tool that can be used to mobilize people from different backgrounds to achieve a goal or challenge injustices (Mouffe, 2007). The best practices of artistic activists can be shared with others to positively transform society and address sensitive issues. Increased access to the internet and social media has facilitated the proliferation of art, politics, and culture which has caused a greater influence on people on local, national, and worldwide levels. This influence can have profound effects on the …

Representation Of Lgbtq Characters In 2019 Young Adult Literature, Janelle M. Snyder

Graduate Research Papers

This qualitative content analysis study examines the representation of LGBTQ characters in 10 young adult literature published in 2019 in light of rising numbers of self-harm and suicide among youth who identify as LGBTQ. Novels were identified using the WorldCat Online Database and the search delimiters of year of publication, LGBTQ, young adult, and fiction yielded 30 novels. Every third novel was randomly selected, narrowing the sample. Novels were read and analyzed using an initial coding list to consider the following factors: sexual identity, age, socioeconomic status, race or culture, major or minor character, sexual orientation, appearance, permanence of sexual …

Occupied Land Is An Access Issue: Interventions In Feminist Disability Studies And Narratives Of Indigenous Activism, Jess L. Cowing

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Native/Indigenous narratives of health and environmental activism often engage with feminist disability issues to center the connections between land, health, sovereignty, and historical legacies of settler militarized colonialism. Within the context from which Native women and youth act as key leaders in health and environmental activism, expanded modes of feminist disability inquiry could interrogate how transformative justice issues require historicizing concepts of ableism through ongoing legacies of settler colonialism. Considering the work of Native writers such as Winona LaDuke, feminist disability studies scholars might critically examine how key tenets of feminist disability issues such as access require attention to Native/Indigenous …

Towards Sickness: Developing A Critical Disability Archival Methodology, Gracen Brilmyer

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Although archival records on disability—such as medical, institutional, and freak show records—can facilitate in telling one side of disability history, these records often omit the voices of disabled people. Considering the abundance of such documentation as well as how sick and disabled people may be difficult to locate in historical records, this article trains a critical lens on archival absences and partialities. By foregrounding the experiences of sick and disabled writers, activists, artists, and scholars alongside critical disability studies, this article conceptualizes “sickness” to develop a critical disability archival methodology. By illuminating the various ways in which sickness and disability …

Vulvodynia, It’S In My Head: Mad Methods Toward Crip Coalition, Renee Dumaresque

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article employs a mad transdisciplinary approach to autoethnography to detail vulvodynia — or chronic vulvar pain — within the system of (dis)ability. Through autoethnography, the self operates as a mobile orientation from which to identify and disrupt the colonial rationalities that differentially construct and narrate vulvodynia across sites of madness and disability. Through historical, discursive, and autoethnographic analysis, I locate vulvodynia’s role in various processes of subject, race, and settler-state formation from the nineteenth century up to the neoliberal present.

Benevolent Feminism And The Gendering Of Criminality: Historical And Ideological Constructions Of Us Women's Prisons, Emma Stammen

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis aims to connect and analyze primary sources that contain untold histories and experiences of people incarcerated in women’s prisons in the US and Britain, from the Victorian period to the modern era. By exploring, compiling and sharing various secondary and primary texts as evidence, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the historical and ideological constructions of the American women’s prison as we know it today. In this thesis, I argue that analyzing and understanding the historical and ideological constructions of the modern women’s prison are critical practices for theoretical and activist frameworks that seek prison …

Tap For The Times: A Study Of Contemporary Tap Dance, Elise Wilham

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Tap dance is an American art form that began with the blending of traditional dance styles from English and Irish immigrants and African slaves. Throughout the 20th century, tap dance developed many styles in response to cultural changes that took place. Contemporary tap dance emerged in the latter half of that century and continues developing today with the fusion of other dance genres and new technologies. This research examines tap dance history to create an understanding of how it developed through a historical lens and analyzes the current approaches applied to the artform along with the characteristics and creative processes …

The Power Of Coptic Women Saints: Historical And Analytical Study Of Coptic Women Saints As Spiritual Models For Coptic Women In The Usa And Egypt, Trevena Adeeb Eskandar Hanna

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This study addresses the lack of research concerning Coptic female experience and Coptic female saints through the use of in-depth interviews of 21 Egyptian Coptic women living in Southern California and 21 Egyptian Coptic women living in Egypt. The interviews explore women’s relationships with, and knowledge of their female saints, as well as their gendered experiences within the Coptic Church, as it relates to gender and the relative importance or honor of female saints. Results show that Coptic women have a special and unique relationship with the female saints of their tradition, who act as role models, intercessors, and friends. …

Pants, Not Petticoats: Transgressive Female Characters In Literature, Sarah Bott

Literary and Intercultural Studies | Senior Theses

Female character development in literature can be revolutionary, especially for protagonists that bend the rules and replace a socially-based image of classical femininity with their own gender non-conforming expressions. In Pants, Not Petticoats: Transgressive Female Characters in Literature, comparative analysis is used to study the non-conforming aspects of three gender rebels: Jo March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1980 Illustrated Junior Library Edition), Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (2002 First Perennial Classic Edition), and Eliza Sommers from Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende (2006 First Harper Perennial Edition). Through a close reading …

“We’Re Here, We’Re Queer, We Will Not Live In Fear!”: A Content Analysis Exploring Gender Disparity In The Public Reappropriation Of Lgbtq+ Slurs, Nicolas Hall

Capstone Showcase

As minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced many hardships throughout history, such as the use of language as a weapon against them. However, this research explores the public display of linguistic reappropriation of LGBTQ+ derogatory language and terms within the community. Throughout history, the use of slurs (e.g. faggot and dyke) and their social definitions have shifted from having no connection to the community to directly affected these individuals. These terms have been used to demonize members of the LGBTQ+ community for decades. Despite this reality, there are some scholars who suggest that these terms are being reappropriated, …

Chupa Chuparosas Y Chupacabras, Ruben U. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

A Rascuache Nahual that uses therianthropy on the border between the US and Mexico border.

A Century In Uniform: Military Women In American Films, Introduction, Stacy Fowler, Deborah A. Deacon

Faculty Articles

From silents of the early American motion picture era through 21st century films, this book offers a decade-by-decade examination of portrayals of women in the military. The full range of genres is explored, along with films created by today's military women about their experiences.

Laws regarding women in the service are analyzed, along with discussion of the challenges they have faced in the push for full participation and of the changing societal attitudes through the years.

From Libertine To Incel: How The "Manosphere" Has Fostered The Continuation Of Gender Violence In Western Culture, Lauren Ziolkowski

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I examine the similarities between the ideologies of the Restoration libertine and the present-day beta-male, the social and cultural forces that shape those ideologies, and the practices of flirtation and seduction shared by the libertine and beta-male. This thesis addresses the expansion of female agency and power in the mid-eighteenth century and twenty-first century, as well as how this expansion of power threatens the social, cultural, and economic privilege held by the Restoration libertine and beta-male respectively. In the eighteenth century, this expansion of power manifests in the emergence of the bourgeoisie class and the development of …