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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in English Language and Literature
Hybrid, Subversive, And Skeptical Performances Of Gender, Power, And Space In The Postcolonial Avant-Garde, Alyson T. Inouye
Hybrid, Subversive, And Skeptical Performances Of Gender, Power, And Space In The Postcolonial Avant-Garde, Alyson T. Inouye
Honors Projects
In her one-woman play, Iraqi-American playwright and actress Heather Raffo performs the testimonies of nine resilient Iraqi women, emphasizing their diverse experiences of the American occupation and life under the Baathist regime. Near the end of the play, one of the soliloquies breaks down into incoherence: an instance of poetic rupture. There is revolutionary potential latent in this avant-garde technique, and by applying it to her urgent and immediate postcolonial context Raffo simultaneously enacts and demands a response of justice to the injustices attested to throughout. Through the poetic rupture of Layal’s textual/psychological breakdown, Raffo undermines the system that, by …
Jane Eyre's Masculine Crisis, Samantha Hilton
Jane Eyre's Masculine Crisis, Samantha Hilton
Senior Theses
Charlotte Bronte’s famed novel Jane Eyre was among the first novels celebrated by early feminist theorists in the 1960s for its portrayal of an independent and enviable female protagonist; both Charlotte Bronte and Jane have since been heralded as examples of the modern Western woman. Feminist theorists have taken to Jane Eyre because of the text’s rebellion against Victorian ideals: rather than passively follow orders, governess Jane instead follows her own code of morality. Jane is an appropriate early feminist heroine, and that, perhaps, is Bronte’s greatest achievement and Jane Eyre’s most lasting success. Feminist interpretations of the novel …
Discreet Feminism: Neil Gaiman’S Subversion Of The Patriarchal Society In American Gods, Christopher P. Thompson
Discreet Feminism: Neil Gaiman’S Subversion Of The Patriarchal Society In American Gods, Christopher P. Thompson
University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations
Neil Gaiman’s use of a hyper-masculine American culture in American Gods sheds light upon the multiple issues surrounding a misogynistic society in which women are treated as sexual objects and punished for their independence as sexual beings. Gaiman’s efforts at highlighting these issues are discreet and hidden under layers of patriarchal expectations, but through the use of his protagonist, Shadow, Gaiman is able to provide an alternative to the society he represents. While he successfully illustrates this more “ideal” society, his endeavors fall short and are almost imperceptible throughout his novel. Gaiman’s work in American Gods, while lacking in its …
If I Had An F: A Feminist Picture Book For Boys, Kelly Tieger
If I Had An F: A Feminist Picture Book For Boys, Kelly Tieger
Graduate Student Independent Studies
This independent study uncovers and meets a need in contemporary children's literature: a book explicitly expressing Feminism as a critical democratic value for everyone. The study includes a comprehensive review of available children's picture books on the topics of gender identity, roles, and expressions after finding a notable absence of books dealing with, or even mentioning the word Feminism. Specifically, this picture book serves the previously unaddressed population of cis-gendered gender conforming boys aged eight to eleven by engaging them specifically in the topic of Feminism. The study posits that picture books can act as catalysts for positive change within …
"That Flesh-Locked Sea Of Silence”: Language, Gender, And Sexuality In Beckett’S Short Fiction, Emily F. Oliver
"That Flesh-Locked Sea Of Silence”: Language, Gender, And Sexuality In Beckett’S Short Fiction, Emily F. Oliver
Honors College Theses
This paper asserts the interconnectedness of language, gender, and sexuality in the short prose of Samuel Beckett. “Assumption,” “First Love,” and “Enough,” are used as specific examples of Beckett’s fiction, selected because they assist in understanding Beckett’s participation in, and inversion of, the hegemonic privileging of the masculine. This interpretation focuses on the use of gendered language, verbalization as a sexual expression, and the manipulation of the “male” and “female” voice. The analysis is both informed by, and seeks to nuance, the linguistic criticism established by second-wave French feminists Kristeva, Irigaray, and Cixous.
Angel Outside The House: The New Woman In Brittish Periodicals 1890-1910, Lindsay Rosa
Angel Outside The House: The New Woman In Brittish Periodicals 1890-1910, Lindsay Rosa
Graduate Thesis Collection
The New Woman described in short fiction and editorial articles in British periodicals not only presented the ideal New Woman to readers, but served to shape the perceptions of the reader depending on the demographic of the targeted reading audience for that specific periodical. The audience for specific British periodicals featuring the New Woman included conservative families whose youth saw the New Woman figure as a role model. The New Woman figure easily connected to readers, particularly young, female middle-class readers, who easily identified with her because she possessed similar socioeconomic characteristics. Just as there were many New Women characters …
Sowing Seeds Of Subversion: Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers' Subversive Use Of Fairy Tales And Folklore, Shandi Lynne Wagner
Sowing Seeds Of Subversion: Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers' Subversive Use Of Fairy Tales And Folklore, Shandi Lynne Wagner
Wayne State University Dissertations
"Sowing Seeds of Subversion: Nineteenth-Century British Women Writers' Subversive Use of Fairy Tales and Folklore" focuses on the fictional works of nineteenth-century British women authors, analyzing their use of fairy-tale and folklore motifs to criticize social mores, in particular those surrounding domestic ideology and the institution of marriage. By situating texts within their sociocultural contexts, I explore how nineteenth-century women authors revised and adapted classic fairy tales to communicate subversive, proto-feminist social criticism to a variety of audiences. I examine fiction and poetry published in literary annuals, in fairy-tale collections, and in the more generally available collections of poetry and …
Hamlet #Princeofdenmark: Exploring Gender And Technology Through A Contemporary Feminist Re-Interpretation Of Hamlet, Allegra B. Breedlove
Hamlet #Princeofdenmark: Exploring Gender And Technology Through A Contemporary Feminist Re-Interpretation Of Hamlet, Allegra B. Breedlove
Scripps Senior Theses
Exploring the process of designing, producing, directing and starring in a multimedia feminist re-interpretation of Shakespeare's Hamlet set in a contemporary social media landscape.
Striving For Salvation : Margaret Anna Cusack, Sainthood, Religious Foundations And Revolution In Ireland, 1829-1899, Sean Heather K. Mcgraw
Striving For Salvation : Margaret Anna Cusack, Sainthood, Religious Foundations And Revolution In Ireland, 1829-1899, Sean Heather K. Mcgraw
Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)
Margaret Anna Cusack, later Sister Mary Frances Clare, and also known as Mother Clare, (6 May 1829 - 5 June 1899) was an Anglo-Irish Protestant who became a Catholic Nun and the foundress of a still existent Catholic religious order, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace. She was also a vociferous champion for the poor, for Irish political rights, for Irish nationalism, and was the first Irish nationalist woman historian and a prolific writer who wrote more than one hundred works. She was a radical, a revolutionary, a champion and hero, a source of conflict and …