Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Punctum In History: Representing The M(Other)’S Death In Peter Handke’S A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Hivren Demir Atay

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article aims to discuss how Handke’s autobiographical narrative, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (1972), stages the writer’s literary project through a neutral account of his mother’s suicide. Telling the story of his mother, who witnessed the Second World War and the nazi regime, Handke narrates the traumatic history of an Austrian town along with his own suffering. Concentrating on his attempt at a distanced language and his questioning of history as an objective fact, the article suggests that Handke’s perception of death and mourning parallels his understanding of the acts of writing and reading. Drawing particularly on Barthes’s concept …

The Different Representation Of Suffering In The Two Versions Of The Vegetarian, Young-Hyun Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “The Different Representation of Suffering in the two versions of The Vegetarian” the author examines how different the representation of suffering in the original and translated versions of The Vegetarian and explores the reasons for this difference. The author in particular refers to representative episodes which the translator’s strategy distorts even the central concepts of suffering in the original work. Her translated version results in critical misrepresentation of suffering and violence in the original version.

Salam Neighbor: Syrian Refugees Through The Camera Lens, Lava Asaad

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper examines the documentary Salam Neighbor (2015), which celebrates the will of Syrian refugee women who are displaced in Jordan. The collective experience of the refugees portrayed in the documentary solicits a reaction from the Western viewer. To counteract the images of refugees in the media, documentaries can be a good alternative for mass media, which has been perpetuating a binary of the West and the Rest. The argument tackles the issue of this new representation of refugees in documentaries within a postcolonial paradigm of how we represent or speak to/with the Other in our technological age, as well …

Introduction To Suffering, Endurance, Understanding: New Discourses Within Philosophy And Literature, Douglas S. Berman

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Literature is generally seen as depicting the lives of human subjects through their unique narratives. And that, while its endpoint may be universal, it is typically grounded in the specificity of a human being (or, occasionally, an animal). Philosophy is tasked with providing the foundational cognitive tools to grasp the meaning of experience for the whole. In Hegelian terms, it unfolds the history of the concept. Yet, as George Steiner, Jacques Derrida, and other recent authors have shown, both philosophy – along with its agonistic cousin, religion -- evoke literary themes, rhetorics, and struggles. Over the past fifty years, Continental …

Actaeon, Artichokes, And Audrey Ii: Fear And Food In Popular Narratives, Margaret E. Foster

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Food has a dual physical and sociocultural relationship to human life. This duality positions images of food as uniquely powerful when subverted in literary or aesthetic representations for the purpose of evoking what Joyce Carol Oates (1998) calls “aesthetic fear.” Drawing on symbolism primarily from Classical mythology, Western European fairy tales, American horror movies, and resistance poetry from the Spanish Civil War, this paper explores four symbolic subversions of the food chain (when hunters are hunted; bloodthirsty plants; cannibalism; and hunger). With particular attention to gender roles and natural life cycles, these narratives illuminate the ways in which food symbolism …

Getting Located: Queer Semiotics In Dress, Callen Zimmerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The body, a long contested site of identity construction, has been used by historically by queers to convey desire, build affinity and transgress norms. Looking at the fashioned queer body, this capstone takes the form of a proposal for an art exhibition at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Seeking to engage with objects, performance and film which approximate, provide proxy for or depart from the body as a site, it explores the social and political quagmire of getting dressed. Comprised of contemporary art that looks at the rupture of legible bodily semiotics, this show wonders what …

Gendered Subjectivity And Resistance: Brazilian Women’S Performance-For-Camera, 1973–1982, Gillian Sneed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation considers the work of a group of women artists in Brazil during the period of the military dictatorship (1964–1985), working in the genre of “performance-for-camera” (i.e., performance for film and video, rather than for a live audience). The artists are Lygia Pape (1927–2004), Letícia Parente (1930–1991), Anna Bella Geiger (b. 1933), Sonia Andrade (b. 1935), Anna Maria Maiolino (b. 1942), and Regina Vater (b. 1943). Some of these women were friends and colleagues who collaborated with each other; all of them contributed significantly to the development of film and video art in Brazil. Their works share an impulse …

How Fashion And Beauty Advertising Negatively Effects Women, Olivia Free

WRIT: Journal of First-Year Writing

In today’s society consumers are constantly exposed to advertisements throughout their day to day lives, whether they realize it or not. The influence advertising has had over the last ten years has grown because of the materialistic society. It is important to realize the extent in which advertisings are thrown into the hustle of every day lives. One of the most problematic industries is fashion and beauty. The subject of most fashion and beauty ads are women and they are being objectified and dehumanizing causing a drastic decline in self-esteem and in increase in overall body shaming from the unrealistic …

Job Satisfaction And Turnover Intention In Higher Education: A Study Of Information Technology Professionals In The California State University System, Brooke Ferrier Banks

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to survey perceived job satisfaction and turnover intention of information technology professionals in the California State University (CSU) system. Employee satisfaction facets (work, pay, opportunities for promotion, supervision, and co-workers), overall satisfaction, and turnover intention were measured. Further, the study identified whether there was a significant difference in perceived job satisfaction or turnover intention based on years of service in the CSU system, gender, or campus in the CSU system. The study also examined the uniqueness of information technology professionals at campuses in the CSU system. This study utilized a mixed-methods methodology with two …

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …

"Actor Denied Straight Nose": Louis Wolheim And The Gendered Practice Of Plastic Surgery In Silent-Era Hollywood, Heather Addison

Film Faculty Research

Hollywood's embrace of plastic surgery as a means of sculpting performers' bodies to meet standards of youth and beauty is a long-standing phenomenon. Using archival materials available in the Howard Hughes Motion Picture Records at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, this article offers a case study of Louis Wolheim (1881–1931), a motion-picture star under contract to Caddo, Howard Hughes's production company, from the late 1920s until the time of his death. Wolheim caused a national sensation in 1927 when he told reporters about his plan to have his iconic "hard-boiled" facial features surgically altered.

Sex, Labor, And Digital Spaces: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Gpguiadelas, A Brazilian Sex Worker Twitter Feed, Ailesha L. Ringer

Communication ETDs

This dissertation project is a critical discourse analysis of written and visual texts produced for GPGuiaDelas, a Brazilian sex worker Twitter feed. Drawing on digital labor studies, feminist studies on sex work, and Brazilian studies on race and gender, 176 Twitter conversations between sex workers and clients were analyzed in order to answer the following: (1) What are the dominant themes in the discourse about sex work constructed through microblogging on social media?; (2) What are the discursive practices of sex workers who use social media as a platform?; and (3) What theoretical insights emerge from the analysis of sex …

Urban Landscape In Mcewan's Narrative Representation Of Berlin, Barbara J. Puschmann-Nalenz

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Urban Landscape in McEwan's Narrative Representation of Berlin," Barbara J. Puschmann-Nalenz discusses the image of Berlin created in Ian McEwanﹸs novel The Innocent (1990) and the chapter titled "Berlin" in Black Dogs (1992). It starts from the hypothetical statement that while British literary fiction set in Berlin is rare after 1970 the genres of spy and detective novel, where crime and violence take center stage, shape the image of the city in highbrow narratives as well. The perspectivization of the cityscape, including its monuments, through the protagonists fundamentally influences its image. In The Innocent the limited view …

Okonkwo’S Reincarnation: A Comparison Of Achebe’S Things Fall Apart And No Longer At Ease, Mary J. N. Okolie, Ginikachi C. Uzoma

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Abstract: The reincarnation myth is a global concept, founded basically in religion and tradition. It was especially vibrant in the ancient times in places like Egypt, Greece, and in continents like Asia and Africa, which possess varying understandings of the myth. In Igbo tradition, for example, it is believed that reincarnation occurs within a family. And that some of the marks of reincarnation are usually the possession of the birthmark or certain other physical features and the exhibition of character and behavioral traits of a deceased person by a living member of his/her immediate or extended family. Thus, reincarnation entails …

The Words And Worlds Of Carolee Schneemann And Barbara Hammer With Two Thoughts By Agnes Varda, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

Complied past interviews as a memorial

'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us, Lynne Stahl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article explores the tomboy trope in film and literature and the "taming" that characterizes it, framing both in relation to contemporary debates about gender and sexual identity as well as cultural anxieties around queer, trans, and nonbinary identity. Examining texts from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to the 1980 film Little Darlings, the article argues that even while the term tomboy may be obsolete, tomboy narratives document processes of rebellion that hold continuing value.

Are Postmodernism And #Metoo Incompatible?, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

If postmodernism renders the replicant Rachael legible as a glossy simulacrum, then #MeToo renders her brutally legible as a victim of sexual violence.

A Failure Of The Music Industry: The Frustration Of Women Of Color, Christina Estes-Wynne

Backstage Pass

Throughout the history of the music industry, women of color have not received the same recognition as their male counterparts because males have dominated the industry resulting in lack of female representation. Women have been oversexualized reducing their clout in their fields and the lack of acknowledgement of success, which discourages future generations of colored women from attempting to reach their highest potential.

"Il Y A De La Plèbe": Figurations Of The Minor Between Complicity And Dissent, Maria Muhle

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this article I discuss the logic of “complicity” and “dissent” that, under current forms of ultra-neoliberal capitalism, is no longer (if it has ever been) one of opposition but rather corresponds to a logic of unrealized potentials, or “as ifs” that “manage” dissent and complicity in conjunction, and erase the dividing line between them, or their value as separate concepts. I examine the genealogy of this opposition and its dilution as a symptom of our contemporary political reality. Michel Foucault presented a paradigmatic view of this genealogy in his analysis of power and the taxonomic separation of three regimes …

Political Violence And Race: A Critique Of Hannah Arendt, Chad Kautzer

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Hannah Arendt’s On Violence (1970) is a seminal work in the study of political violence. It famously draws a distinction between power and violence and argues that the latter must be excluded from the political sphere. Although this may make Arendt’s text an appealing resource for critiques of rising political violence today, I argue that we should resist this temptation. In this article, I identify how the divisions and exclusions within her theory enable her to explicitly disavow violence on one level, while implicitly relying on a constitutive and racialized form of violence on another. In particular, Arendt leaves legal …

The Ambivalence Of Black Rage, Vincent Lloyd

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement embrace anger. Owning their rage sets these activists in opposition to an older generation of black leaders, invested in respectability, who narrate anger as an emotion to be overcome. Younger activists worry about complicity with the status quo – with white supremacy – of these older activists, yet embracing anger is no surefire way of avoiding complicity with the status quo. This essay investigates the ambivalence of black anger, drawing on philosophy and feminist theory while also locating the current eruption of black anger in an ambivalent history of black political affect. …

Complicity, Dissent, And The Palestinian Intellectual, Sa'ed Atshan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this article, I draw on the major works of two Palestinian intellectuals—Edward Said and Hanan Ashrawi—and I compare the experiences of Palestinian intellectuals living in the United States with those living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. The writings of these two exemplary figures shape the conceptual underpinnings of my exploration of the way Palestinian academics navigate questions of complicity with the different hegemonic political systems that govern their lives. I argue that Said and Ashrawi model a steadfast refusal to be complicit in the state-led repression around them at the same time as they engage in …

Subject, Subjugation, And Subjectivity, Raef Zreik

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper analyzes the ways in which complicity and dissent feed and subvert one another, or the ways in which the subjugated self becomes a political subject. The formative event of Palestinian collective identity is the loss of home and homeland in the aftermath of the Nakba of 1948. “The Catastrophe” divided the Palestinian community to two: Those who remained within the borders of the Israeli state and became Israeli citizens, and the Palestinian refugees, who came to establish the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and led an armed struggle. While examining the two narratives, I also explore two communal modes …

Family Affairs: Complicity, Betrayal, And The Family In Hisham Matar's In The Country Of Men And Nadine Gordimer's My Son's Story, Lital Levy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay undertakes a comparative reading of the dynamics of complicity and resistance in two contemporary Anglophone novels, Nadine Gordimer’s My Son’s Story (1990) and Hisham Matar’s In the Country of Men (2006). My analysis pursues three main lines of inquiry: the ostensible public/ private and political/ personal divides; loyalty and betrayal in the family; and the ambiguous status of the child as a witness and a political subject. I argue that in their respective portrayals of the protagonists’ struggles against South African apartheid and authoritarian rule in Libya, both authors use the device of the child narrator to expose …

Facing The Ruler, Facing The Village: On The Roads To Complicity Following Mengzi And Benda, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “Facing the Ruler, Facing the Village,” Zvi Ben-Dor Benite seeks to broaden the boundaries of the discussion about complicity by taking it away from late 20th-century and contemporary debates about it. At the same time, he wishes to highlight the many faces that the problem of complicity could have in different historical moments. Following Czesław Miłosz, this article understands that there are many roads to complicity that have been articulated in different ways across time and space. This article is, therefore, an integrated meditation on complicity bringing together two radically distant approaches to the question. Reading the …

Remnants Of Dissent, Thomas Docherty

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “Remnants of Dissent,” Thomas Docherty explores the relation of dissent to guilty complicity in post-war Europe. The article opens with a consideration of the position of Karl Jaspers in 1945 and examines how Jaspers worked through the various modes of guilt that flowed from diverse modes of living under Nazism. Of particular interest is the status of silence in the face of tyrannical Nazi oppression and murders. The essay explores how the workings of language, and its manipulations by the Nazis, helps to normalize such tyranny and to make resistance to it both dangerous and difficult. The …

Introduction: Complicity And Dissent, Or Why We Need Solidarity Between Struggles, Nitzan Lebovic

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Growing pressure from politicians and corporations has thrown into question the very legitimacy of opposition and critique. A language of political affirmation has confused and misled the public, driving many to adopt a cynical attitude to politics. The result has been a rapid decline of legitimate critique, the rise of populism, and a growing tendency to squelch civil disobedience with a militarized police force. The introduction to the special issue considers the role of the complicit/dissenting intellectual in history and literature, politics and law. It explores the genealogy of the terms, as well as conditions for their appearance in our …

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, And Paradox In Subaltern Labor Photography, Mahnure Janis

Theses and Dissertations

Imaging Exploitation, Complexity, and Paradox in Subaltern Labor Photography is an expanded cinema performance examining 'cheap' labor in the fast fashion industry through a self-reflexive diasporic lens. The images and narration explores the garment factories in Bangladesh and contains ‘a photographer’s cognitive meta-data’, including ethical dilemmas while taking the images.

It's Me, Sarah, Fabiola Y. Andrade Chinchilla

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the making of It’s Me, Sarah, a University of New Orleans thesis film. It explores the process of creating the film in three parts. Part one will examine the pre-production, including the writing and preparation for the shoot. Part two will detail the production, including the shooting affairs. Part three will cover the post-production process, which will include the editing. The document will then reference these three segments regarding the film’s theme and will conclude by evaluating whether the final film achieves its intended conception.

Class, Capital And Colonies In India And Palestine/Israel, Amir Locker-Biletzki

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The article “Class, Capital and Colonies in India and Palestine/Israel” studies the way Indian and Israeli Communist intellectuals conceptualized and understood European Colonialism. In contrast to present day settler-colonial theories – that disregarded Marxist critic of European expansion – Indian and Israeli Communists developed a Bolshevik colonial thinking. For Communists the triple forces of imperialism, capital and class devastated the “archaic” native way of life. In doing so they clear a path for European domination, settlement and class differentiation of both colonizers and colonized. The article traces Bolshevik colonial thinking to its origins in Marx’s and Lenin’s writings. It continuous …