Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Towards The Non-Spectacle: Responses To Necropolitics In The Artwork Of Teresa Margolles And Maya Watanabe, Leslie Anne Condon

Masters Theses

How do we engage with artwork that addresses complicated histories

of colonialism and political violence, specifically intangible and

incomprehensible violence? Mexican artist Teresa Margolles’ 2005 work, Lote

Bravo, is named after and composed of the soil from a mass grave site

discovered in 1995 in the southeastern corner of Ciudad Juárez, a city known

internationally for the femicide that has continued to haunt its streets and

peripheries since the 1990s. Peruvian filmmaker Maya Watanabe’s 2019 film

Liminal cinematically documents the official exhumation of two mass graves

in the Ayacucho and Huánuco regions of the Andes highlands, where

thousands of …

Examining How Task Forces Utilize Intelligence Methods During Anti-Human Trafficking Operations: Mitigating The Threat Of Human Trafficking Among Native American Women And Girls, Jessica Shockness

Theses and Dissertations

Native American women and girls, including First Nations people, have been disproportionately targeted due to centuries of marginalization, severe maltreatment, and gender inequality. To mitigate these violent acts, law enforcement and intelligence agencies should use various intelligence methods to identify and locate traffickers, victims, and high-risk locations. The intelligence methods that are analyzed in this study include open-source, geospatial and human intelligence. The lack of utilizing these methods can hinder the ability to mitigate human trafficking effectively. According to a study conducted through Northwestern University, Farrell et al. (2019) provided evidence showing that the Uniform Crime Reporting program continuously displays …

Heteropoesia: Basil Bunting’S Translation Of Obayd Zākānī’S Mush-O Gorbeh, Emadeddin Naghipour

Languages and Cultures Publications

This article studies the role of ‘selving’ and creative interpretation in literary translation. Specifically, it analyzes one of Basil Bunting’s successful translations of Obayd Zākānī’s Mush-o Gorbeh, a picturesque and catchy poem in rhyme and rhythm, laden with animal characters, which was considered to be both a masterpiece of children’s literature and a very important political satire. Bunting, a translator of Persian classical poems into English, had both political and poetic missions as a spy and an up-and-coming poet. This study turns to the theories of translation by Steiner, Benjamin, and Bassnett, among others, to show the challenges of translating …

Animal Triangulation – Expanding The Oppressed/Oppressor Binary To A Triadic Constituency: The Oppressor, The Proxy, And The Oppressed, Katherine A. Abelanet

English Dissertations - Archive

Drawing on three fields of study, Animal Studies, Black Studies, and Shakespeare Studies, this dissertation examines animal triangulation as a system of oppression in which three constituents are triangulated for the benefit of the oppressor. Through triangulation, the oppressed/oppressor duality expands, creating a triad: the oppressor, the proxy, and the oppressed. This reimagining of the traditional binary of oppression opens new areas of conversation by adding an additional component. In animal triangulation, a proxy is created when an oppressor trains an animal or an animalized human to produce an abusive outcome on an oppressed group. By using a proxy, the …

Critical Approaches To Climate-Induced Migration Research And Solutions, Rosalyn Negrón, David Hernández, Hossein Ayazi, Pablo Shiladitaya Bose, Nyingilanyeofori Brown, Elora Chowdhury, Janelle Knox-Hayes, Rajini Srikanth, Banu Subramaniam, Farhana Sultana, Patrick Sylvain, Carlos Vargas-Ramos, Charles Venator-Santiago

Sustainable Solutions Lab

In this commentary we explore the confluence of factors shaping climate-induced migration and the need for comprehensive solutions grounded in historical and systemic understandings. We argue that climate change, colonial legacies, and geopolitical policies significantly influence migration patterns, particularly for historically marginalised communities. We call for scholars to develop holistic frameworks that consider environmental, political, historical, and economic factors while advocating for the legal recognition and protection of migrants and people displaced by climate impacts. Drawing on examples of internal migration and displacement in the United States and refugee camps globally, we highlight the complexities of resettlement. We propose integrated …

Asian American Navigation In Higher Education: Do We Belong At Colby College?, Amanda Rose Alpert

Honors Theses

This thesis explores how Asian American students navigate their belonging at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI), specifically a case study at the higher educational institution Colby College. In understanding how Asian American students navigate the spaces around them, this thesis dives into the history of Asian immigration to the U.S., the Asian American politicized label, and the different diasporas and cultural nuances Asian Americans experience that make up the complicated, diverse, and misunderstood label. Through exploring global racializations of Asian bodies and legacies of Western imperialism and colonialism, this gives a basis of how Asian Americans understand themselves as persons living …

Seeing Her, Wanting Her: Postfeminist Desire And Its Contradictions In Zendaya’S Magazine Covers, Sophia Shelley

International Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

This article examines Zendaya’s modelling evolution as a case study to explore how a postfeminist critique and psychoanalysis can illuminate the contradictory nature of women’s advertising. My analysis compares Zendaya’s covers in Seventeen (2012) and Essence (2020), emphasizing the stark differences in aesthetics, where Seventeen conforms to ideals of (white) femininity, and in opposition, Essence centres around Black femininity and desire. By situating Zendaya as both a gendered and racialized ‘other,’ the intricate dynamics of femininity, race, and age in media portrayals are made visible. I argue that Zendaya’s image is sold through postfeminist ideals of empowerment, choice, and sexuality …

Sojourner Truth’S Vision: A Life Dedicated To Ending Injustice, Nyla R. Stokes

Emerging Writers

This essay explores the profound legacy of Sojourner Truth, a pivotal figure in the fight against injustice. Through a personal narrative interwoven with historical analysis, the author reflects on their initial ignorance of Truth's significance and how a school project transformed their understanding. The paper delves into Truth's life, including her experiences as a formerly enslaved woman, her impactful speeches and her collaboration with other notable activists. It examines the complexities of her identity as a Black woman in the 19th century, the societal perceptions of femininity, and the challenges she faced within the feminist movement. The author also draws …

The Paradox Of Survival: Gendered Food Insecurity, Labor Inequalities, And Coping Strategies During The 2023/4 Drought In Eastern Ethiopia, Meron E. Lemma

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

In drought-prone regions of Eastern Ethiopia, recurring droughts profoundly reshape everyday life in ways that deepen existing gendered inequalities. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Fedis district, including semi-structured interviews with women, project implementers, and government officials, as well as group discussions with community members, this study explores how women experience, navigate, and resist the gendered impacts of drought. By attending to the sociopolitical dynamics of drought and the development interventions that accompany it, I analyze how these forces restructure labor, land, food systems, and authority in ways that reproduce and exacerbate existing inequalities. Women’s coping strategies, ranging from begging and …

Poesía Mapuche Y Vasca Como Herramienta De Resistencia Cotidiana, Paula Ruiz Santamaría

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation examines the work of contemporary Mapuche poets Adriana Pinda, Maribel Mora Curriao and Roxana Miranda Rupailaf, alongside Basque poets Leire Bilbao and Miren Agur Meabe, who write partially or entirely in their native languages— Mapudungun and Basque— as a form of resistance against the historical and ongoing imposition of Spanish. Through their poetry, these poets defend their identities and cultural heritage, invoking their matrilineal lineage to remember and heal. They also subvert traditional Catholic prayers by modifying them into invocations to Goddesses, casting spells of liberation of the female body, denouncing patriarchal violence and recreating alternative worlds. Their …

Raíces De Esperanza: The Omnipresence Of Female Ancestors As Guides Through Nepantla, Fabiola Sanchez Huidobro

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis investigates the intertwined threads of generational rage and grief experienced by a first-generation individual navigating the emotional and spiritual landscape shaped by their ancestry and migration. Furthermore, this work examines how emotional and spiritual inheritances intersect with the author’s cultural subconscious, facilitating a deeper understanding of the complexities of being caught between two worlds: Mexico, the origin of their roots, and the United States, the land of their birth. Through personal stories and cultural reflections, this piece aims to investigate the profound ways in which matrilineal inheritances help guide the author through the transitional space of Nepantla. Nepantla …

Glossed Over, Rebecca Oh

Theses and Dissertations

Glossed Over is a collection of interdisciplinary artworks exploring my Korean-American diasporic identity and how gender, queerness, religion, neurodivergence, and internet culture intersect within that experience. Through a blend of painting, woodworking, and sculpture, this installation carries the various elements of undefinable 한 (pronounced: han), a concept I attempt to define and contextualize in the Introduction and throughout this thesis. Each artwork operates through coded language, metaphor, and partial disclosure, offering space for the othered to find recognition through subtle cues and signifiers. Through Glossed Over and this thesis, I scratch the surface of my journey in reconciling generational trauma …

The Roots Of Womanism As Identity, Empowerment, And Liberation For Black American Women: Raciolinguistic Genealogical Exploration, Shante Noel Millercent Morgan

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Black American women intellectuals, activists, and scholars have grappled with womanism in relation to Black women’s presence in the world, particularly in the context of feminist and Black liberation movements. Since womanism was introduced more than four decades ago, both movements claimed Black women were a priority in theory and rhetoric but often excluded them in practice. For this reason, this dissertation examines womanist thought as a source of identity, empowerment, and liberation for Black American women. I employed two methods to investigate womanist thought that align with a qualitative inquiry: genealogy focus and raciolinguistic genealogy analysis. I conducted a …

Huchum: The Legacy Of Fire Suppression, Indigenous Land Management, And Media Representation, Carolyn Coyne

Pomona Senior Theses

In my thesis, I examine how various forms of news media from the 1900s to present day in Ohlone territory have framed a particular hegemonic ideology around fire that matches early colonial journal entries – an ideology that is fueled by fear, sensationalism, and exclusion and directly commits violence against the Ohlone people. I investigate this time period because this is when modern news corporations, like The New York Times, rose into prominence. Specifically, I question how media representations of fire inform regulations over controlled burns; what are the similarities in discourse between media framing and policy? What tactics are …

No Hope?: Queer Negativity, Afropessimism, And The Limits Of Futurity, Colton Barton

Theses and Dissertations--English

Since their inceptions, black and queer studies have sought to articulate the positions of “black” and “queer” within American social life—often converging on the goal of liberation. This thesis examines the intersection of two “negative” theoretical frameworks—Afropessimism and anti-social queer theory (or “queer negativity”)—to interrogate both the limits and generative potential of radical negativity. Though emerging from distinct intellectual traditions, these frameworks conceptualize blackness and queerness as constitutive negations—gaps within the dominant social order that render those so marked inassimilable to normative notions of humanity. While the convergences of these theories can be illuminating, their shared pessimism risks obscuring alternative …

Ferocious (And Tender) Survival, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

A review of Blood Loss: a Love Story of AIDS, Activism, and Art, by Keiko Lane (Duke University Press, 2024) in the Anarchist Review of Books

One Man Show/ Who Am I, Devin Baker

Dance (MFA) Theses

Historically, stereotypes of ideal masculine physiques and attributed qualities have led to discriminatory and exclusionary practices that adversely affect black queer men and how they show up in various performance and social spaces. As a result, black male bodies in these spaces have employed the alter ego as a tool to imagine themselves inside/outside these constructed masculinities. How can the alter ego aid in transcending dated notions of race and gender, beholden to black male bodies within concert dance? Through the intertwining of personal narrative and research rooted in psychology and gender studies, this work examines the alter ego as …

Digital Zines As Mental And Sexual Health Communication Tools For Latina Teens: Format And Content Acceptability And Initial Findings, Jenn M. Lilly, D'Andrah Almanzar, Susan R. Pace, Dante D. Bryant

Social Service Faculty Publications

Recognizing the potential of digital zines (defined as selfpublished,

online publications combining artwork and

text) as culturally tailored health communication tools,

this article examines the acceptability and impacts of two

digital zines about mental and sexual health created by

Latina young people for Latina teens as a health communication

strategy. We conducted an anonymous online

survey completed by Latina teens who read the zines (32

for sexual health and 33 for mental health). Data analysis

aimed to explore, summarize, and interpret the collected

data using an artificial intelligence (AI)-enhanced

approach. Survey participants found the zine format and

content acceptable and …

Examining Mental And Sexual Health Themes In Latina Youth Zines: A Multi-Modal Content Analysis, Jenn M. Lilly, D'Andrah Almanzar, Doreen Dorcely, Luisa Fernanda Sandoval Cortes, Ana Iris Murcia

Social Service Faculty Publications

Multiple, convergent risk factors place Latina youth at disproportionate risk for mental

and sexual health issues. Yet, their firsthand perspectives and experiential knowledge of

how to navigate mental and sexual health challenges is rarely the subject of scholarly

inquiry. This article presents a multi-modal content analysis of themes and messages

conveyed by two digital zines created by Latina young adults for Latina teens through an

arts-based research project. In this arts-based research, zines functioned as both data and

method, capturing Latina youth’s nuanced perspectives and lived experiences of mental

and sexual health. We identified six themes in their works—acknowledging and …

In Praise Of Dust, Hasler Gomez-Perez

Theses and Dissertations

A desire path is a physical manifestation of where a system has failed, but also where it has been refused, where a new path has been made. The wake exists in the post, it is not a singular, untethered event, but a subtle double entendre that lives in the post-death, but also in the pre-life—not a liminal limbo, but a superposition of dying and waking.

This collection was assembled and composed over the course of two years as I navigated my practice, myself, and others. Present here are my thoughts, my experiences, and in many ways my beliefs. IN PRAISE …

Feeling Foreign / Foreign Feeling: Affect In Southeast Asian Diasporic Short Story Collections, Francys Aerin Fortes

Theses and Dissertations

Affect studies have long been saturated with scholarship investigating the fluidity of emotions, though a larger turn in the field now prioritizes the felt experiences of marginalized peoples. Sianne Ngai’s work is one part of this turn that seeks to unpack the effects of oppressive systemic forces on Black, Brown, and queer bodies. Sianne Ngai reexamined the nature of emotions in her seminal text Ugly Feelings (2005), particularly concerned with how negative feelings are disproportionately felt by marginalized bodies as a result of conditions of obstructed agency, systems of power, and wage labor capitalism. Drawing from Ngai’s writing, this thesis …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

My Body My Choice: A Qualitative Study Of Volitional Female Sterilization In The U. S. Latina And Hispanic Female Population, Heather Morris Tuip

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This qualitative study, utilizing an interpretative phenomenological analysis methodology, elucidates the experience of Latina and Hispanic women living in the United States who have volitionally undergone sterilization or have sought the procedure out for birth control. Understanding the rich, contextual, lived experience of Latina and Hispanic women through an intersectional framework highlights how cultural influences and contemporary policies on reproductive rights informed their personal choice to undergo a female sterilization procedure. The participants of this study shared how they made meaning of their experiences. Within a homogenous sampling of study participants who share ethnicities and genders, six group experiential themes …

An Ethnography Of Love Jihad: The Governance Of Interfaith Marriages In Times Of Hindutva, Snehal Sharma

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

My doctoral research focuses on the violations of human and citizenship rights of women and religiously marginalized communities (based on religious differences) in the backdrop of right-wing movements in India. I assess the Hindu nationalist propaganda named “love jihad” to demonstrate the way it weaponizes religious exogamy. This propaganda legitimizes violence against Indian religious minorities and women as it claims that marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men are acts of terrorism against Hindus with the sole aim of increasing the Muslim population using Hindu women's bodies. I have used ethnographic research methods to explore the legal process of interfaith …

Loving-Learning-Leading-Living: A Scholarly Personal Narrative Of A Black Gay Father, Russell E. Thornhill

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examines the roles, challenges, and contributions of a Black Gay father, a demographic largely absent from academic discourse. While literature explores themes of the church, LGBTQ+ identities, and social justice, there remains a critical gap addressing the lived experiences of a Black Gay father. This study fills that void by elevating narratives as community activists, family leaders, and clergy members, acknowledging their transformative impact within familial and societal structures. The methodology used is the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN). It allows for in-depth, reflective engagement with personal experiences in conversation with scholars while situating them within broader sociocultural, theological, …

Mirrors Of The Reel: Black Women's Identity In American Cinema (2009-2024), Melanie-Penny Harrison

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigates whether white supremacy structures, embodied in Hollywood’s predominantly white leadership, drive negative portrayals of Black women in 31 mainstream American films from 2009 to 2024. Employing a mixed-methods approach—quantitative content analysis, qualitative content analysis (QCA), and narrative methodology—I code portrayals for racism, patriarchy, heterosexism, colorism, and internalized racism, classifying them as progressive (e.g., empowered roles), regressive (e.g., subservient stereotypes), or hybrid. Guided by Critical Race Theory and intersectionality, the analysis examines narrative structures, character agency, symbolism, and dialogue to uncover intersectional patterns (e.g., race, gender, class) across three periods: 2009–2013, 2014–2018, and 2019–2024. Across these periods, cultural …

Not Everyone Had Glass Slippers: A Black Feminist Trauma-Informed Literary Analysis Of Cinderella, Snow White And Alice In Wonderland, Marcia Lynn Dinkins

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation reimagines Cinderella, Snow White, and Alice in Wonderland through a Black feminist, healing-centered lens to examine how Black girls and women have been erased, misrepresented, and silenced within dominant literary traditions. Through creative retellings, cultural remembrance, and critical analysis, it introduces the Soulforger, a new archetype and methodological figure who refuses erasure, reshapes silence, and forges meaning out of rupture and scar. Developed uniquely within this study, Black Feminist Trauma-Informed Literary Analysis merges Black feminist theory with transformative approaches, material culture, and embodied knowledge to position storytelling as both scholarship and transformation. The retellings—Mari’Ella: A Black Cinderella, Sola …

Grieving In Doorways: A Critical Autoethnographic Exploration Of Embodied Knowledge Amid Shifting Reality And Radical Possibility, Holly Rae

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis is a critical autoethnographic exploration of embodied knowledge amid shifting reality and radical possibility. Beginning and ending with my own body, I explore how grief, as an embodied companion, offers wisdom and power in moments of profound change. Rooted in a methodology of slowness, rest, walking, and active listening, this work resists the extractive pace of modernity and instead invites building a relationship with grief and discomfort. This research is an experiment in co-creating knowledge with bodies and their intersectionality within systems that would keep us separate from knowing our embodied knowledge. As a location of research for …

Feminine Felons: Violent Offenders' Intersectional Experiences In Twentieth-Century Montana, Cassidy Ann Vander Voort

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the treatment of violent female offenders in Montana in both the media and prison system from 1900-1960. Women of all races faced gender discrimination from both the carceral system and popular media. Local newspapers sensationalized crimes committed by female offenders, portraying them as women who lived outside of the expectations of womanhood in the twentieth century. Newspapers and courts placed women into two categories: “mad/sad” female offenders, who received forgiveness for their crimes; or unforgivable, “bad” offenders. Crime did not determine these categorizations; instead, gender expectations of the white middle class shaped female criminals’ treatment. If these …

"A Changed Understanding Of Our Present": Moby-Dick As Prophetic Ecological Activism, Katie Ann Schini

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale is a classic of American literature, spanning multiple genres and remaining culturally relevant nearly 175 years after its original publication. Though on the surface Moby-Dick reads as an adventure story of a man who experiences the whaling industry firsthand, Herman Melville’s text continues to invite new generations of readership through the framework of the twenty-first century climate crisis.

In this thesis, I position Moby-Dick as a text that can be used to understand our modern society’s current dispositions of ecological grief. My thesis operates at the intersection of three main literary critical theories: ecocriticism, affect, and …