Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Vrouwenwerk | Beyondtheglassceiling: Educate, Empower, Reimagine, Malou Lena Julia Desplenter

Master's Theses

In contemporary society, social media platforms have emerged as powerful tools for advocacy and activism. This thesis explores the potential of Instagram in raising awareness and fostering dialogue around workplace equity for women in Belgium. Inspired by influential women's advocacy accounts, I embarked on a journey to fill a noticeable gap in the digital landscape – the absence of Belgian-centric content addressing workplace empowerment for women. Grounded in the unique intersections of Belgian national policies, European Union directives, and global socio-economic dynamics, this capstone delves into the multifaceted challenges faced by Belgian women in the workplace.

Through critical historical analysis …

The Diorama Of Coexistence Hypnagogia: The Liminal Space Between Dream And Reality, Yunseok Song

Master's Theses

The “Diorama of Coexistence” explores the imagined spaces where humans and animals share the same environments, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy. This year-long photographic project is inspired by my Christian faith and the Genesis creation narrative, where the world was originally harmonious and unspoiled. Through my work, I aim to reimagine the natural world, not as it is, but as it could be a place where animals and humans coexist peacefully.

In researching human development and its impact on nature, I found that animals are often confined to spaces like zoo, far from their natural habitats. This led …

Taking The Bang Out Of The Gang: The Impact Of Catholic Schools On Gang Homicides In El Salvador, Ann Jillian Villanueva Adona

Master's Theses

This study explores the impact of Catholic presence on homicide rates in El Salvador, specifically focusing on the role of Catholic schools in reducing violence in gang-afflicted municipalities. Analyzing municipality-level data from various years, I used Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Instrumental Variable (IV) regressions to study the association between school enrollment and homicide rates. Results show that higher enrollment in Catholic schools is linked to a reduction in homicide rates in gang-affected areas, contrasting with an increase in homicides for non-religious schools. This research sheds light on the importance of investing in Catholic education as a strategy for violence …

Sport As A Means Of Emancipation: A Global Feminist Perspective, Exploring The Case Study Of Sahrawi Athlete Inma Zanoguera, Olivia Alexandre

Master's Theses

This thesis explores how sport can serve as an effective means of emancipation against intersecting forms of oppression, framed in the colonial context of Western Sahara. Through the case study of Sahrawi athlete and activist Inma Zanoguera, this research examines the emancipatory potential of athletics at the intersection of feminism, decolonization and the pursuit of self-determination.

Chronicling the multidimensional journey of Inma Zanoguera, her narrative becomes the vehicle of a bigger message : How athletic pursuits provide a platform for subverting entrenched systems of patriarchal, racial and political oppression. As Zanoguera states, "I believe in the power of sports to …

Knowledge Production And The Unthinkable: Weaving Stories Of Art, Gender, And Land, Christin Huntsman

Master's Theses

Colonialism is deeply and violently embedded in Western knowledge formation—dominant power structures produce epistemes that uphold and perpetuate colonial narratives. This kind of knowledge production forecloses other possibilities. Western discourse of truth becomes universalized to the point that other worldviews, other knowledges that do not conform to hegemonic norms, are suppressed or silenced. This thesis examines three areas of hegemony and erasure: art, gender, and land. First, the history of art clearly marks a delineation between Western elitist artistic masterpieces and non-Western ethnographic artifacts. Eurocentrism of art in the academy determines what counts as art and how art is categorized. …

Supporting South Korea’S Aging Population: How Ai And Iot Acceptance Connects The Young And Old, Bobby Im

Master's Projects and Capstones

In 2024, South Korea surpassed every other nation by becoming the country with the lowest fertility rate (below 0.7%). Population decline will hinder future ability to care for their aging population and although the government and private corporations are investing millions of dollars on developing Artificial Intelligence-Internet of Things (AI-IoT) devices to support the aging, the acceptance levels and the amount of family support required is undervalued. By examining AI-IoT’s current use and role in South Korea’s public health system this paper shows how intergenerational support helps optimize existing procedures and equipment, increases the level of acceptance and use, and …

Shaping Pacific Islander Identities In The Diaspora: Using E-Talanoa To Strengthen Transnational Ties, Lorna M. Probasco

Master's Projects and Capstones

Pacific Islanders have engaged in transnationalism since the time of their early voyages. Ancient wayfinders first learned to read the stars and swells to cross the ocean for a myriad of reasons: trade, opportunity, education, adventure, and more. Today, our borders have stretched beyond those of the Pacific Ocean, from the far reaches of Australia to the corners of Alaska, and yet we still maintain these transnational bonds with our ethnic homelands. One such way we foster these ties and build cultural competency is through talanoa.

Talanoa, a pan-Pacific speech genre, is more than just a form of communication. It …

The Women Of The Oregon State Insane Asylum: 1900-1910, Rebekah Catherine Averette

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the lives of female patients at the Oregon State Insane Asylum between 1900 and 1910 and examines the significance of that decade as a period of transition in asylum care from a moral treatment model to a focus on moral hygiene practices to subvert insanity before it took root and medicalized psychiatric treatment for severe or chronic cases requiring institutionalization.

At the turn of the twentieth century, state insane asylums were in the aspirational early stages of transforming into specialized psychiatric and medical hospitals. Ultimately, the hoped-for transformation would not materialize in a meaningful way until well …

Reverend John Bradley

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Mrs. Lisa Machelle Wilkerson Smith

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

“The World Withers And The Wind Rises”: Apocalyptic Language In 'The Homecoming Of Beorhtnoth' And 'The Fall Of Arthur', Kristine Larsen

Journal of Tolkien Research

As previously explored by the author, Tolkien’s 1930’s alliterative verses published as The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún and The Fall of Arthur make direct and repeated references to the End Times, paralleling the prominence of the apocalyptic Second Prophecy of Mandos in revisions to his Middle-earth legendarium written at that time. Similar themes can be found in Tolkien’s verse-dialogue The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth. The Homecoming’s genesis dates to the same general time period, and both The Fall of Arthur and The Homecoming describe a war-tainted world in apocalyptic tones, the environment dark (literally, figuratively, and in terms of men’s …

Gender And Social Media: Delving Into Young Adults’ Daily Participation On Facebook, Masa Tantawy

Culture, Society, and Praxis

With the prevalence of social networking platforms, it is crucial to study the role that gender plays in its use, for gender, which is continuously shaped by society, plays a critical role in our identities and daily lives. This paper explores how the social construction of gender affects and is affected by social media through discussing the usage of Facebook by young adults, especially Middle Eastern cisgender males and females, and women’s limited freedom on this social networking site in the Arab countries. It is argued that despite individuals having some freedom online compared to offline, their choices, specifically that …

The Lady’S Museum Project, A Digital Critical And Teaching Edition Of Charlotte Lennox’S Lady’S Museum (1760-61), Completes Phase Two Of Its Three-Phase Development Schedule, Karenza Sutton-Bennett

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

The Lady’s Museum (1760–61) was among the most important early periodicals largely written by one of the most important eighteenth-century authors, Charlotte Lennox, whose multigenre, proto-feminist writing is beginning to receive the critical and pedagogical attention it deserves. Yet no modern edition of the text has existed—until now. Launched in 2021, the Lady’s Museum Project is presenting the first critical edition of—and learning community around—Lennox’s Museum in three open-access formats to encourage the widest possible readership: a non-specialist digital, interactive edition of the text and LibriVox audiobook intended for public and undergraduate-student audiences, and a specialist digital edition intended for …

Review Of A History Of African American Autobiography, Edited By Joycelyn K. Moody, Sarah Buckner

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

A review of A History of African American Autobiography edited by Joycelyn K. Moody.

Review Of On The Digital Humanities: Essays And Provocations, By Stephen Ramsay, Michelle Lyons-Mcfarland

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

A review of On the Digital Humanities: Essays and Provocations by Stephen Ramsay.

Review Of Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, And The Bach Tradition In Enlightenment Berlin, Edited By Rebecca Cypess And Nancy Sinkoff, Jeanne R. Swack

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

A review of Sara Levy's World: Gender, Judaism, and the Bach Tradition in Enlightenment Berlin, edited by Rebecca Cypess and Nancy Sinkoff

Review Of The Oxford English Literary History: Volume 5: 1645–1714: The Later Seventeenth Century, By Margaret J. M. Ezell, Karen Griscom

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

A review of The Oxford English Literary History: Volume 5: 1645–1714: The Later Seventeenth Century by Margaret J. M. Ezell.

Review Of The Cambridge Edition Of The Works Of Anne Finch, Countess Of Winchilsea, Edited By Jennifer Keith Et Al, Melissa Schoenberger

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

A review of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, edited by Jennifer Keith et. al.

Out Of The Closet And Into The Classroom: Teaching Anne Finch's Plays, Diana Solomon

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

The publication of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea makes it possible to teach not only a much wider assorted of her edited poetry, but also Finch’s two dramas: the tragicomedy The Triumphs of Love and Innocence, and the tragedy Aristomenes. This essay proposes integrating Finch’s plays into a course on Restoration and eighteenth-century drama by proposing a class, “Genre Trouble,” which sets them in dialogue with frequently-taught plays of the era. Included herein are a syllabus of primary and secondary sources, suggestions for discussing Finch’s plays and dramatic paratexts in comparison to works …

Teaching Poetry With Anne Finch: Manuscript Culture As Early Modern Social Media, Jennifer Keith

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

This essay discusses two approaches I use to teach Anne Finch's—and others'—poetry. Drawing on certain habits of early modern manuscript culture, I make visible to my students ways that reading and writing are socially embedded practices, which may variously involve exchange, reciprocity, or censorship. By adapting the "quaint" habits of manuscript culture practiced by Finch and many others to specific assignments, I encourage students to experience poetry as living, sociable occasions of reading and writing. To augment my students' engagement with early modern poetry I connect it to frameworks from their twenty-first-century reading and writing worlds. These exercises in "early …

Anne Finch On The Patio: A Scholarly Eat And Greet, Melissa Schoenberger

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

This article recounts an instructional event for English majors held in the central campus library. Students engaged with various materials related to the career and editorial history of Anne Finch. The event offered students an introduction to questions of information literacy, textual history, and literary studies.

Teaching Finch And / In Performance: A Media Studies Approach (With Toolkit), Elizabeth Heckendorn Cook

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

Teaching the birdsong poems and compositions for musical settings of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, through media theory allows students to connect their own social-media-based expressive arts practices with the multimedia practices of early modern women writers.

Introduction: Teaching The Works Of Anne Finch, Part Ii, Jennifer Keith, Tiffany Potter

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

This essay introduces Part Two of the two-part “Concise Collection on Teaching the Works of Anne Finch," guest edited by Jennifer Keith (Aphra Behn Online, vol. 14, no. 1, 2024). The first part of this collection appeared in Fall 2023.

Politics, Authorship, And Philosophy: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S The Blazing World In The Diverse Graduate Classroom, Martine Van Elk

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

This essay explores how Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World works differently when taught and read on its own and in combination with Cavendish’s other works. Focusing specifically on the graduate classroom, I examine and present strategies for teaching the book alongside works by other early modern women and for teaching it in a single-author course. While in isolation, The Blazing World allows for discussions that focus primarily on questions of gender, genre, class, and politics, read in tandem with Cavendish’s other works, in particular her philosophical writings, The Blazing World becomes a source for reflections on questions of creaturely identity, …

Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Philosophy: Early Modern Women And The Question Of Biography, Peter West

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

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the learning experience.

Teaching Queer Theory And The History Of Sexuality With Margaret Cavendish’S The Convent Of Pleasure, Valerie Billing

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

This article summarizes my approach to teaching Cavendish’s play The Convent of Pleasure in my course “LGBTQ+ Literature and Culture,” which I teach at a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. I demonstrate how I teach the play with excerpts from literary scholarship in queer theory in order to help students sharpen their close reading skills, teach scholarly engagement, and deepen students’ understanding of early modern and Restoration comedy and the history of sexuality.

“A World Of Her Own Invention”: Teaching Margaret Cavendish’S Blazing World In The Early British Literature Survey And Beyond, Vanessa L. Rapatz

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

Margaret Cavendish has only recently been included in the canonical literature anthologies and even then, the samplings of her prolific writings are severely truncated. However, even this small taste of Cavendish’s poems and excerpts of A Description of a New World called The Blazing World leave early British literature survey students hungry for more. Frequently, students in the survey choose to focus on Cavendish’s writing for their research projects in which they practice feminist and queer readings and engage with Cavendish as a key player in utopian and science fiction genres. Beyond the survey course, Blazing World works wonderfully in …

Relocating Early Modern Women: Teaching Margaret Cavendish To A Broader Audience, Jennifer Topale

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

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, can be called many things: writer, poet, philosopher, woman, Royalist, eccentric rule-breaker, scientific collaborator, utopian thinker, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, access to her writings, typically her The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World, are often limited in academic settings to courses centered on the seventeenth century, early modern utopian literature, Restoration literature, and possibly an early modern women writers class. Though these are all wonderful course topics, they are often upper-division courses specifically designed for English majors of the early modern period. Limiting Cavendish to only these courses means that …

Concise Collections: Teaching Margaret Cavendish, Part I, E Mariah Spencer

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

This is the introduction of Part I of the "Concise Collection on Teaching the Works of Margaret Cavendish."

“Always Unguarded And Often Uncivil”: A Case For Lydia In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Leah Benedict

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

Despite decades of feminist scholarship, Lydia Bennet has consistently been taken at Jane Austen’s word: she is viewed as capricious, difficult, and silly, and in most cases found to be deserving of her fate. But with the adaptation The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Lydia became the character most likely to inspire a heightened emotional bond with viewers. Because of the show’s format, Lydia’s voice and experiences became more central, and were conveyed with greater sympathy than prior adaptations. Against all anticipation, many viewers immediately identified not with Lizzie, but with Lydia. My paper explores the cultural contexts surrounding the web …