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The Commodified Body And Post/In Human Subjectivities In Frears’S Dirty Pretty Things And Romanek’S Never Let Me Go, Rocio Carrasco

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Following new materialist analysis, this article takes the body as the central locus of analysis, and relates it to broader questions such as ethics, ideology, power and/or technologies. Specifically, it revolves around the idea of embodied subjectivity as articulated by scholars Rosi Braidotti, Sherryl Vint or Cary Wolfe, whereby body and subjectivity are indissolubly and interestingly connected. Stephen Frears’s Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go (2010) exploit the idea of the commodified body, understood here as a vulnerable body, a disposable commodity at the service of powerful and/or wealthy people. Victims of the cruelties inflicted …

Introduction, Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz, Manuela Coppola

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This special issue addresses contemporary representations of “vulnerable” bodies in transit in Anglophone literature and culture and explores their strategies of resistance. The use of the expression “bodies in transit” in this issue has to be understood both as a reference to the materiality of diasporic, exiled, migrating, trafficked bodies, and as an allusion to the metaphorical transition of these marginalized subjects from alienation to regeneration in multiple contexts. The interdisciplinary contributions in this special issue tackle vulnerability as a marginal(ized) and potentially enabling condition entailing the crossing of bodily, sexual, mental, ethical, cultural, and national borders. Ranging from literature …

Carceral Dreams: Punishment In Contemporary Utopian Fiction, Amandine Faucheux

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation argues that the representation of legal violence—punishment—is an essential definitional axis to utopian literature. Utopian scholarship tends to position the political or economic system that a text imagines as the key determinant of that text’s identity as a Utopia, a dystopia, or an anti-Utopia. I propose instead that the propensity of the imaginary society to inflict violence in a legal or official context defines its utopian or dystopian quality. Through an analysis of twentieth and twenty-first century Anglophone utopian novels and stories by George Orwell, Octavia E. Butler, James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon), Adam Roberts, and Kelley Eskridge, …

Sylvia Plath And "The Bigger Things": War, History, And Modernism At Midcentury, Reagan Lothes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sylvia Plath and “the bigger things” explores the ways in which Plath’s “confessionalism”—so often read as antithetical to T. S. Eliot’s notion of “impersonality”—constituted not a break from modernism but rather a negotiation of its transatlantic legacy. In doing so, it works against a long-standing critical tradition that has defined Plath, who was living in England as she composed her Ariel poems, as nonetheless a distinctly American poet and one focused uniquely—and, as some have claimed, even pathologically—on the self. An examination of Plath’s published work, including interviews, statements of poetics, journal entries, and letters, in the context of a …

Brrap Brrap Pew Pew: Representations Of Abortion In Adult Animated Television Comedy, Erika A. Byrnison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis documents and analyzes representation of abortion in American adult animated comedy, charging that it is under-examined and significant because representation on television in other genres has traditionally been absent or misleading. It covers theories on how pop culture communicates social norms, and posits that greater truthful representation of abortion in popular culture may be effective in reducing prevalent abortion stigma in the U.S. amongst the young by normalizing and more accurately representing the procedure. It reviews why our culture should be concerned about reducing abortion stigma in the U.S. It also identifies the “taboo ratings paradox,” wherein television …

“In The Beginning Was Body Language” Clowning And Krump As Spiritual Healing And Resistance, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In the neighborhood of HollyWatts in Los Angeles, dance allows a shift from existing as bodies presented as sites of threat and extinction to sources of spiritual empowerment. Clowning and Krump dancers—their subjectivity and their dancing bodies—negotiate survival from trauma and socioeconomic marginalization. I argue that the dancers’ performances act as embodied narratives of “re-membering in the flesh.” The performance acts as a spiritual retrieval and re-integration of traumatic memories and afflictions into memory through the body. Choreography and quotes from dancers support the claim that Krump and Clowning is “re-membering in the flesh” that enacts self-worth, self-defined sexuality, and …

Constraint And Control, Patricia Ayres

Theses and Dissertations

I have long considered themes of the body. Drawing on my knowledge as a fashion designer, I bring materials and hardware from the fashion industry into my artwork transforming and rendering them non-functional. My sculptures relate to stories of isolation, separation, and confinement. The following pages will analyze how the United States penal system controls, constrains and restricts the body through physical and psychological wounds. Furthermore, they will examine how the Catholic Church controls people’s minds and behavior through a ritualistic belief system.

Performing Desire In Times Square: Sailors, Hustlers And Masculinity, Kel R. Karpinski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From WWII to the early 1970s, New York City as a port town created a liminal space extending from the piers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard all the way to Times Square in Midtown Manhattan. In Times Square, through interactions on the street, in bars and in hotel rooms, desire and masculinity become a performance between and for men. The queerness of these performances lies in the fact that they fall outside of the norms of society both as same-sex encounters and because sex work is viewed as “deviant.” Further, these interactions eschew traditional labels and limits of desire and …

Sister Aimee, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Sister Aimee (2019), directed by Samantha Buck and Marie Schlingmann.

Multicultural Women Writers, Nashieli Marcano, Jennifer Jacobs

Research Guides & Subject Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

Post Colonial Studies, Nashieli Marcano, Kyle Brooks

Research Guides & Subject Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

Be A Man: Childhood, Masculinity, Mental Hygiene, And The Asylum In The 1950'S, Emily Lonna Miller

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This project studies the use of mental hygiene films in the 1950s to understand the American ideal of gender, sex roles, and mental health. Focusing specifically on masculinity, this project shows that psychologists and psychiatrists of the mid-twentieth century helped to define what it meant to be a real man in America. Sources for this research included mental hygiene films, psychological studies and articles from the 1950s, and news broadcasts. Upon examination of these sources, it becomes clear that mental health specialists were concerned with the development of correct masculinity in male children and becoming the modern doctors that could …

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project 2018 Annual Report, Michael S. Nassaney

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Western Michigan University (WMU) hosted its 43rd annual archaeological field school this past July and August under the auspices of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project. The Project is a long-term, multidisciplinary, community-based partnership between the City of Niles and WMU that investigates and interprets colonialism and the fur trade in the region.

We selected the theme “Technology Then and Now,” to focus our activities in 2019. We recognize that technology is not only important in the 21st century, but has defined humanity since our earliest ancestors crafted simple tools to assist them in their survival. Most of the archaeological …

Curation, Erika K. Hartley, Miro Dunham

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Table of Contents

• Preserving the Past for the Future
• Common Curation Challenges
• Fort St. Joseph Collection
• Did You Know?
• Collection Challenges
• Fort St. Joseph Curatorial Fellowship
• How You Can Help

Teaching Visual Literacies: The Case Of The Great American Dust Bowl, Mary F. Rice, Ashley K. Dallacqua

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using The Great American Dust Bowlby Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, The Arrival (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand …

Uncoverings: The Research Papers Of The American Quilt Study Group, Volume 40 (2019), Laurel Horton, Terry Tickhill Terrell, Katha Kievit, Linda Welters, Margaret T. Ordoñez

Uncoverings Journal

Preface by Laurel Horton

Prickly Elegance: Identifying and Dating Disocactus Motifs on Early Chintz by Terry Tickhill Terrell

Edmund Potter: Nineteenth Century Calico Printer by Katha Kievit

Delaines: A Forgotten Fabric by Linda Welters and Margaret T. Ordoñez

Contributors

Index

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining In American Women’S Life Narratives, 1859-1912, Gokce Tekeli

Theses and Dissertations--English

Where We Belong: Spatial Imagining in American Women’s Life Narratives, 1859-1912, studies three marginalized and disadvantaged American women’s self-life narratives during a transitional period in American history. In this dissertation, I am taking an interdisciplinary approach. Where We Belong borrows from social geography, new materialism, and autobiography studies in order to complicate critical discussions of women’s space and place in nineteenth-century women’s self-life narratives. Each chapter of Where We Belong presents a case study with the goal to provide a broader understanding of women’s strategies of belonging due to and despite their spatial exclusions. The overarching emphasis in each …

Nuanced Narratives: Reporting With Critical Race And Feminist Standpoint Theories, Emily Margaret Pelland

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Google Expedition titled WWI Era Through the Eyes of the Chicago Defender explores African American experiences during the early years of the Great Migration (1910-1970). Conventional journalism relies on the false idea that journalists are meant to be, and can be, objective, outside observers. This report provides tools for journalists to create more nuanced, thorough storytelling endeavors. This report describes the theoretical framework and intent of the Virtual Reality (VR) project for students in grades 8 and above. It utilizes Feminist Standpoint Theory (FST) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to cultivate a VR experience that acknowledges particular, overlooked aspects …

Gender, Politics, Market Segmentation, And Taste: Adult Contemporary Radio At The End Of The Twentieth Century, Saesha Senger

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This dissertation explores issues of gender politics, market segmentation, and taste through an examination of the contributions of several artists who have achieved Adult Contemporary (AC) chart success. The scope of the project is limited to a period when many artists who figured prominently in both the broader mainstream of American popular music and the more specific Adult Contemporary category were most commercially viable: from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. My contention is that, as gender politics and gendered social norms continued to change in the United States at this time, Adult Contemporary – the chart, the format, and the …

"And Nothing She Needs": Victoria's Secret And The Gaze Of "Post-Feminism", Marc Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

A study of the Victoria’s Secret catalogues, which frames the period 1996-2006, reveals that the models’ poses and postures manipulate the formulaic gaze of objectification with seemingly empowering themes. Instead of the indeterminate, averted looks that Berger (1972) and Mulvey (1989) considered in their analyses, the more recent versions of Victoria’s Secret photographs confront viewers with pouts, glares, and stares of defiance. In this essay, I contribute to current conversations regarding mixed messages that concern post-feminism and third-wave feminism (Duffy, Hancock, & Tyler, 2017; Glapka, 2017; McAllister & DeCarvalho, 2014; McRobbie, 2009). In this regard, the Victoria’s Secret catalogues constitute …

Show Her It's A Man's World: How The Femme Fatale Became A Vehicle For Propaganda, Leann Bishop

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

During World War II women joined the workforce in droves due to propaganda such as Rosie the Riveter. When Soldiers began returning from the war they wanted stability and normalcy. They wanted to return to the America they left where women ran the household and men went to work. Women, however, experienced a new sense of freedom from working and wanted to continue their liberation. It was during this time that femme fatales, the sultry women of film noir became popular. They represented the liberated women of the 1940s. The film industry saw an opportunity to use these women found …

Subverting The Patriarchal Panopticon: Challenges To Eugenics Rhetoric In The Novels Of Mccullers And Welty, Regina Marie Young

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My thesis takes into consideration the scope of eugenics ideologies and their influence on literature specifically two mid-twentieth century authors from the U.S. South Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty. I contend that both writers engage with eugenics rhetoric challenging and subverting the prevailing ideology of the day albeit in differing ways. McCullers and Welty address different facets of eugenics rhetoric in their novels— namely the nature of “defect” and the criteria for “fitness” for “citizenship.” This thesis interrogates the ways in which these writers develop rhetorical strategies for resisting eugenics ideologies in their respective novels Reflections in a Golden Eye …

The Evolution Of Sunset Magazine's Cooking Department: The Accommodation Of Men's And Women's Cooking In The 1930s, Jennifer Hoolhorst Pagano

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The Western regional magazine Sunset has been published under a series of owners and publishers since 1898. In 1928, Sunset was purchased by Lawrence Lane, a Midwestern magazine executive who transformed it from a failing turn-of-the-century, general interest publication about the West, into a successful magazine about living in the West for the Western middle-class. Sunset had always been a magazine for men and women, and one that appealed to both male and female intellectuals at the time Lane purchased it. Lane and his editors attempted to interject more rigid middle-class ideals into a magazine that had espoused ideas that …

"Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, And Broadway Bodies, Ryan Donovan

Publications and Research

This article surveys how contemporary Broadway musicals cast fat women and focuses on Hairspray. The use of fat suits and contractual weight clauses figure into the discussion of fat stigma and casting practices. Seemingly body-positive musicals both celebrate and undermine the identities staged in them.

The Impact Of Access, Socioeconomic Status, And Education, On Breast Cancer Screening In Boston, Ma, Chioma Azuonye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In Boston Massachusetts, Black and White women aged 50-74, experience limited access to breast cancer screening. The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether there is a correlation between breast cancer screening access to personal healthcare providers among Black and White women, aged 50- 74, in Boston, MA. The study focused on whether there was a correlation between breast cancer screening access and socioeconomic status among women, and whether a correlation existed between breast cancer screening and their educational levels. The study was informed by the health belief psychological framework. The study consisted of secondary data from the …

"Bachelor Buttons": Feminist And Womanist Essays And Poems, Billy E. Clem Jr.

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this critical and creative dissertation, I sketch a brief study of selected multicultural hybrid texts in contemporary US Anglophone literary studies; discuss their implications for reading, writing, and teaching; and present my own hybrid text.

Second-wave feminist and womanist theories and practices opened literary and cultural studies to new and exciting ideas and methods for reading, teaching, and writing both canonical and non-canonical Anglophone texts. One genre emerging anew by these theories, practices, and practitioners is the literary hybrid text, a multi-genre form composed of a variety of prose genres, poetry, drama, and/or visual imagery. Hybrid texts ask readers …

The Mockery Of Things: Material Culture And Domestic Ideology In The Detective Fiction Of Anna Katharine Green, Claire Meldrum

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Mockery of Things: Material Culture and Domestic Ideology in the Detective Fiction of Anna Katharine Green examines how a popular genre author like Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) uses objects to articulate middle-class identity and social constructions in late-nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America. During that era, the home as both a physical space and an ideological signifier was a central tenet in American middle-class identity. Focusing on domestically situated objects – clothing, household furnishings and domestic architecture – this dissertation considers how such items, which have tended to be read in support of domestic identity, instead function within the context …

My Mother On Dream Interpretation And The Lack Of Finality In Death, Liz Johnston

Comparative Woman

This is an interview with my mother, a dream interpreter. Here, we explore her practice of reading dreams and discuss her experiences in communicating with spirits.

Resistance To Neocolonialism In Contemporary Chinese Literary Theory, Zeng Jun

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Resistance to Neocolonialism in Contemporary Chinese Literary Theory" Jun ZENG claims that the introduction of Western Literary Theory in the past forty years of China's reform and opening up was carried out under the background of neo-colonialism. "Western imagination" in the discourse of contemporary Chinese literary theory was an important aspect of the strategy of cultural resistance under the overwhelming influence of Western neocolonialism. Contemporary Chinese literary theory no longer simply regards Western literary theory in the twentieth century as a bourgeois literary ideology; instead, it adopts a "de-ideological" attitude to return to the issues of literature, …

Mo Yan’S Reception In China And A Reflection On The Postcolonial Discourse, Binghui Song

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Mo Yan's Reception in China and a Reflection on the Postcolonial Discourse" Binghui Song argue that the controversial style and themes of Mo Yan's works are necessitated by the interconnected yet different contexts of China and the rest of the world, only by means of which Mo Yan can let his voice be heard. As one of the most excellent and unique contemporary Chinese writers, Mo Yan has exerted extensive influence on Chinese readers, and his works have also caused various controversies over the past 30 years. His winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature, rather than …