Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Positionality Matters: School Choice Decisions Based On Ethnographic Accounts Of African American Parents, Dr. Stacy L. Thomas

Dissertations

This research delves into experiences with reasoning and selected criteria for choosing the right school for their children. Beginning with a series of vignettes that assist with recognition of parental empowerment, this research archives acknowledgement of their own positionality when it comes to making life changing decisions. As selected parents of African American children grapple with the strategic balance and possibilities of educational outlets, family and finances, they offer ethnographic accounts of their successes and failures with school choice. Individual accounts of parental school choice decisions posing as data ascertained from interviews provided research that explored the critical frequencies and …

Reworking The White-Masculine Ideal, Steven H. Gonzalez

Art Theses and Dissertations

This text functions as an exploration of self through artistic practice, a designated space for reflection on contemporary Queer experience. In looking specifically at the permeation of the idealized-white-masculine figure as found within Western visual culture, social media and gay pornography become isolated as sites where these figures are commonly found. This line of inquiry defines how the ideal is reified through these differing digital platforms and the social implications the homogenized male form has on raced individuals. In addition to determining the image of the perfect masculine physique through research, this text expands on how its' imaged representation becomes …

Thesis/Thesis Document 2, Jessamyn Plotts

Art Theses and Dissertations

Thesis/thesis document 2 explores the subversive power of the painted image, made by a physical performative act. Such acts are not confined to the production of the art object, but expand across the landscape, involving the minds, bodies, and things of culture adjacent to the making process. Following the thinking of Maurice-Merleau Ponty, Thesis/thesis document 2 understands painting not as the container of a finite, legible message, but as a physical platform for the conveyance of perceptual, personal, and experiential ambiguity. Made in this way, painted images offer a powerful alternative to the proliferation of propaganda and advertisement …

Testing The Gender Role-Perception Theory: A Proposed Explanation For The Lack Of Maternity Leave Policy In The United States, Erica R. Boucher

Student Publications

The United States is the only industrialized country in the world to not have a federally mandated paid maternity leave. While there is an obvious lack of maternity leave policy in the United States, there is not adequate explanation of this lack. There are some current theories used to explain this problem, such as Hofstede’s theory of individualism, and historical influence, but they are not able to fully explain why there is not maternity policy in the United States. A new proposed theory, the Gender Role-Perception Theory combines gender roles in the United States and attitudes/perceptions towards working mothers to …

Oil Wealth And Gender In Political And National Belonging, Caroline M. Bosworth

Student Publications

Oil-based economies drive a connection between national identity and support for patriarchal belonging. Oil wealthy nations ensure that both men and women are excluded from political participation, and thus have a weak civil society. Through entrenching the population in the benefits of the oil economy, rentier states affirm that there is a high level of national identity. A weak civil society and the patriarchal nature of the oil wealth disenfranchises men and women, thus increasing women’s belief in the effectiveness of a male leader.

White Women And White Supremacy: How And Why White Women Contribute To White Supremacy, Raegan M. Gawronski

Student Publications

This paper identifies the ways in which and the reasons why white women contribute to white supremacy through an analysis of a blog called "Wife With a Purpose" written by #TradWife Ayla Stewart. I found that the primary methods white women use to uphold white supremacy are reproducing it through the family, subscribing to hegemonic white femininity, and repeatedly choosing to identify with their privileged identity of being white as opposed to their oppressed identity of being a woman. White women contribute to those factors in covertly racist ways, often making it more difficult to call them out for it. …

Invisible Intersex: How Discourse Serves To Perpetuate Violence, Zoe A. Philippou

Student Publications

Critical discourse analysis surrounding intersex individuals makes it is clear that the violence against intersex individuals stems from a sense of othering due to the silence surrounding the public discussion and representation of intersex individuals. Additionally, the current discourse serves to create a circular argument of blame instead of serving to decrease the violence done upon intersex individuals. This research serves to explore the discourse surrounding intersex individuals and propose social and institutional ways of working to end the stigma surrounding intersexuality.

Violence In The Hands Of Women: An Analysis Of Gendered Violence In Life Is Strange And Before The Storm, Mitchi Anne Maja

Senior Theses

This thesis is an analysis of the video games Life is Strange and Before the Storm and how they serve to reflect social expectations and norms placed upon both women and men even today. Cultural studies recently accepted video games as a form of media to study, especially with the prevalence and accessibility of video games in various platforms. Violence in video games is culturally associated with men and the male audience; my analysis focuses on violence in the hands of women. By analyzing the choices I made as a player and how these games present their narratives and characters, …

Becoming A Fan: Reinventing, Repurposing, And Resisting In First-Year Composition, Keshia Mcclantoc

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores the cultural and pedagogical potential of the fanfiction community. The practices of recursive peer feedback, reinvention as invention, and production of subversive narratives via repurposing posits the fanfiction community a democratic space where a myriad of identities can react to, interact with, and disseminate information in a productive learning community. During a time when socio-political interactions are so intense, it is necessary that teachers of composition and rhetoric pay attention to learning communities where democratic deliberation is promoted through the production and sharing of writing. Ultimately, this thesis argues that reinvention and repurposing within the fanfiction community …

Critical Embodied Praxis For Social Justice And Peace Educators: A Story Of Personal Transformation Through Analysis Of My Jewish And Settler Identities, Cara Michelle Silverberg

Capstone Collection

In this paper, I examine definitions of and relationships between violence, oppression, peace, liberation, and embodiment in the context of critical pedagogy in order to construct a theory of critical embodied praxis for social justice and peace educators. Considering the body to be a tangible vessel through which narratives and mechanisms of violence are expressed and maintained, I explore the potential of the body to be a vessel through which liberatory narratives may be generated and shared. After constructing a theory of critical embodied praxis, I illustrate this framework in action through a personal narrative that explores the intersections …

Otterbein Aegis Spring 2019, Otterbein Aegis

Aegis: The Otterbein Humanities Journal

Editor's Introduction, Book Reviews and Essays including: To Keep or Not to Keep by Lindsay Lisanti, Fantastic Beasts and How to Value them by Casey Hall, Sex, Youth, and the Pill b Hannah Schneider, How Historiography is Crucial in Comprehending the Leading Circumstances of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 by Josh Wolf, Magic is no Cure by Casey Hall, The Ever-Evolving Relationship of the Supreme Court, Women and Homosexuals by Amanda Reed, Vietnam: A Love Story by Abigail Fahmi, Gender and Sex in 1920' America by Raven Manygoats.

Making Masculinity: The Performance Of Gender Onstage And In The Streets, Gillian T. Ebersole

Dance Department Best Student Papers

Drawing from dance historians and movement theorists, this paper analyzes the role movement plays in the construction and performance of gender. By deconstructing perceived stereotypes about masculinity, the argument breaks down the gender binary and its relation to movement. With research rooted in the works of Bill T. Jones and Joe Goode, the paper also looks at the intersection between masculinity and sexuality. Movement as a performance of gender is rooted in cultural and emotional contexts, heavily influenced by traditional gender roles and the persistence of homophobia. The fluidity of queer gender expression offers an alternative to the stereotypical display …

Proof Positive, Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

Vázquez-Valarezo Poetry Award

This poem is an exploration of the aftermath of sexual assault and the myriad factors which determine how women, especially women of colour and Asian women, cope with that aftermath. I am particularly concerned with how the testimony and literature of Asian women can prompt other Asian women to unravel their own stories by reflecting these stories back to them and giving them a medium through which to have this confrontation. With this piece I attempt to communicate that the act of confronting and sharing trauma is a continuous and absolutely vital process for survivors of sexual assault.

Give Name To The Nameless So It Can Be Thought, Lalini Shanela Ranaraja

Audre Lorde Prize

No abstract provided.

Le Personnel Est Politique: Médias, Esthétique Et Politique De L’Autofiction Chez Christine Angot, Chloé Delaume Et Nelly Arcan, Mercédès Baillargeon

Purdue University Press Book Previews

Regardant les questions de témoignage, de confession, de traumatisme, de sexualité et de violence dans les œuvres (semi-)autobiographiques, ce livre explore la co-construction d’identités personnelles et collectives par des femmes écrivains à l’ère des médias et de l’autoreprésentation. À une époque où la littérature française est souvent accusée d'être égocentrique et trop narcissique, Mercédès Baillargeon avance que l’autofiction des femmes a été reçue avec controverse depuis le tournant du millénaire parce qu’elle perturbe les idées reçues à propos des identités nationale, de genre et de race, et parce qu’elle questionne la distinction entre fiction et autobiographie. En effet, ces écrivaines …

Looking Beyond Binaries To Avoid Polarization In The Sex Work Debate, Laura Keenan

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper considers both sides of the debate surrounding sex work--the argument for criminalizing sex work and the contention for legalizing sex work--in relationship to policies aimed at combating sex-trafficking in America as well as globally. A queer theory concept of recognizing and removing linguistically created binaries is applied to this debate to offer a more productive perspective on the matter.

Becoming A Culturally Relevant Feminist Teacher: An Autoethnography Of An Exchange Student, Astri Napitupulu

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis recounts the journey of an exchange student at a public university in Central Illinois on becoming a feminist teacher. By reflecting on her experiences as a Master’s student in the United States and high school teacher in Indonesia, the author unpacks her journey on becoming a feminist teacher. The author argues for the need of a feminist lens to understand the White supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist system that is also infused in United States educational system. Finally, this research contends for a culturally relevant feminism as viable in her home institution in North Sumatra, Indonesia.

The Women Of Explosive Ordnance Disposal: Cyborg, Techno-Bodies, Situated Knowledge, And Vibrant Materiality In Military Cultures, April Michelle Cobos

English Theses & Dissertations

Women’s service in the U.S. Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) community began in the 1970s amidst policy changes that opened more active duty roles to women while maintaining restrictions on their access to combat. However, in the past two decades, the changing contexts of war brought the EOD community, and subsequently, these women to the forefront of combat preceding the 2016 policy repeal, positioning these women at a poignant, kairotic moment in history. The exigency of such a project in the field of rhetoric applies to more broadly analyzing the disparities between policy discourse and the lived experiences of individuals who …

Hollywood's Return To The Home: Taming The Post-World War Ii Career Woman, Kate Marburger 19

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Generations Of Fertility: A Bioethical And Evolutionary Analysis, Kat Panos 19

Honor Scholar Theses

Influenced by both societal and biological factors, women play a central role in reproducing offspring for future generations. Because females play such an integral role in reproduction, it is often psychologically difficult for women to cope with infertility that can arise due to a variety of factors: ovarian factor infertility, cervical factor infertility, uterine factor infertility, and peritoneal and tubal infertility factors. As a result, technology has evolved to cater to women's infertility in procedures and treatments regarded as assisted reproductive techniques (ARTS), medical regimens than impose bioethical implications. Examples of ART include therapeutic intrauterine insemination (IUI), in-vitro-fertilization (IVF), pre-implantation …

The Introvert's Guide To The Galaxy: A Reflective Guide Of Solo Travel And Study Abroad, Hope Patterson

Senior Theses

Oringinally meant to be a much longer volume, The Introvert’s Guide to the Galaxy is a creative anthology of works that explores one person’s Study Abroad and solo travel experiences. The main goal is to open a space to talk about unique experiences that cannot be anticipated, but should be learned from later. Topics include culture shock, sexism, alcohol culture, family, freelance tutoring, and risky outdoor activites.

Travel with our trusty guide as she fills you in on the things to know while traveling abroad, including finding perfect outdoor sleeping conditions because you missed all the taxis, dealing with the …

Post-Colonial Restructuring Of Human Rights Systems In Morocco, Kristen Hansen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

A surge of academic criticism has followed the NGO corporatization trend (‘NGOization’) of the 1980s. NGOs have been called an extension of neoliberal ideology as they are pressured to depoliticize and corporatize their structures. NGOs have been forced to fit into an international schema of aid work that compromises their ability to bring about impactful change within their own communities. This trend has been cultivated by shrinking neoliberal governments and an intensified reliance on NGOs to fulfill international human rights requirements. This project examines the role of Rabat women’s rights organizations within the context of Morocco as a neoliberal state …

Voices Unheard: Women And Their Children In Nepal’S Incarceration System, Aune Nuyttens, Mikayla Rose

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research project focused on women in Nepal’s incarceration system. Our goal was to hear and share their stories with the hopes of humanize and de-stigmatize perceptions of female prisoners in and outside of Nepal. A central component to these stories, as we learned, was also the story of prisoner’s children and the NGOs who provide assistance to this vulnerable group of women and their children. The researchers travelled to the east and west of Kathmandu to visit rural and urban prisons in Nepal, and visited various children homes, however the research was based out of Kathmandu, where many of …

The Effect Of Threat On Preferences For Male Versus Female Candidates, Marley Sandberg

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In the United States, there is a continuing question of why the political bodies of the government, (i.e. the Senate and the House of Representatives) lack descriptive representation for women (Paxton, Kunovich & Hughes, 2007). We have seen a growing body of research that tries to explain this lack of female politicians. While many explanations have been found that partially explain this, such as incumbent status favoring men, and fewer political role models for women (Paxton, Kunovich & Hughes, 2007), there still has been no definitive answer. There is reason to believe that threat may play a role in a …

Gender Identity And Facebook: Social Conservatism And Saving Face, Nastaran Khoshsabk, Jane Southcott

The Qualitative Report

People increasingly log on to Social Networking Websites to remain updated with the latest News and to share their thoughts and their significant life events. Their perception of their own and others’ identities influences their self-presentation on social media. There is a mental image of the audience on the mind of online users when they share content. The extent to which individuals reveal or conceal aspects of their identities within a socio-cultural context affects the presentation of their digital gender identity. We have explored Internet accessibility and use of social media relating to adult users for both Iranians living in …

Reaching And Supporting Trafficked Women In Austria And Germany: A Call For Training On Attachment And Trust-Building, Silke Gahleitner, Katharina Gerlich, Roschan Heiler, Heidemarie Hinterwallner, Edith Huber, Mascha Körner, Josef Pfaffenlehner, Yvette Völschow

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Many victims of trafficking in women are not reached by the available support services despite numerous measures that have been put in place on both the national and international levels. This deficiency is due to the inadequacy of the support systems, which do not meet the needs of the women concerned. A bilateral Austro-German research project entitled “Prävention und Intervention bei Menschenhandel zum Zweck sexueller Ausbeutung (PRIMSA) [“Prevention and intervention in the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation”] was set up with the aim of developing ideas for a multidisciplinary prevention and intervention scheme. This article …

"Sometimes You Have To Be The Leader": A Minnesota Oral History On Fighting Sexual Exploitation, Trudee Able-Peterson

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Prostitution survivor Trudee Able-Peterson used oral histories to research and document the efforts of women and men to respond to the sexual exploitation of women and children in Minnesota. Her findings illustrate the leadership needed to overcome centuries of commercial sexual exploitation to obtain a beginning societal response. Respondents indicated the importance of their interaction with pioneer leaders in other locales. Their comments also illustrate the many issues and challenges still facing the community.

Familiar Forms, Strange Uses: Paratexts, Narrative Interventions, And The Queering Of Possible Worlds In Illicit Narratives Of Nineteenth-Century Britain, Jessica Saxon

English Theses & Dissertations

“Losing” one’s self in a story is one of the great pleasures of reading. Key to this act is the “transport” of the reader into the storyworld. Nineteenth-century British narratives offered various transport modes, including prefaces and footnotes designed to orient the reader to the storyworld and narrative interventions designed to align the reader with the values of that world. Yet this act of transport was fraught with tensions and anxieties in the nineteenth century. Worries about the dangers of reading, especially the dangers for women and the lower classes, abounded; much of the worry stemmed from fears that these …

In A Child's Place: Centering Black Girlhood In Black Feminisms Through The Bildungsroman, Taylor L. Bailey

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines the effects of misogynoir— a specific form of oppression Black women experience due to the intersection of being deemed inferior in both race and gender— on the development of Black girlhood. In Black feminist theory and criticism, though, the language used often subordinates Black girls and does not ascribe adequate import to their experiences. Using the Black girl bildungsroman, specifically The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, as a way to survey the effects of misogynoir and the significance of homosocial, intraracial bonding, I argue that Black feminisms should center Black girlhood …

Female Grief For Civil Rights Martyrs: Emotional Labor As Activism [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Women's And Gender Studies Program.

Women’s and Gender Studies Program Documents

No abstract provided.