Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

"No, Not There": The Literary Precarity And Profundity Of Queer Spatiality, Samuel James Aftel

Theses and Dissertations--English

Love, broadly defined, needs space to grow. For love to materialize and sustain itself (in both literature and society), it must find hospitable geosocial, institutional, and psychic terrain. This is especially true for queer intimacies beyond heteronormative relationality, for the prospect of love’s radical––or reactionary––possibilities is contingent upon the more general sociality in which it develops. Yet love is often a worldmaking and, sometimes, historic mechanism unto itself. Love and its concomitant sexualities must therefore be understood within and without normative structures of hegemony; the workings of (neo)colonialism and capitalism––as well as patriarchy, white supremacy, and heterosexism––dictate to love, and …

Cyborgs, Dolls And Passing Narratives: Trans-Femininity In Popular Music, Quinn J. Troia

Lewis Honors College Thesis Collection

The Cyborg is a figure that has been used by feminist scholars as a metaphor for feminist issues and transgender identity because the embodiment of both transgender people and cyborgs challenges binary understandings of male/femaleness and human/nonhumanness respectively. This comparison has also suggested the potential of reading cyborgs as passing figures who attempt to perform normative social identities; however, scholarship analyzing Cyborg figures has not explored this in ways that are specific to trans-feminine people. By combining contributions from the theory of gender performativity and research on transgender linguistic practices and identity construction, I perform a visual and textual analysis …

Ralph Chessé And Forman Brown: When Carving The Other Is Carving The Self, Ben Fisler

Representing Alterity through Puppetry and Performing Objects

This article examines two “closeted” puppeteers, Forman Brown and Ralph Chessé, who demonstrate alterity’s ability to disrupt itself. Their puppets are both exotic (“different from me”) and incorporated (“like me”), as the artists’ hidden racial and sexual identities blur the boundaries between self and other.

Queer Void: Autoethnographic Notes On Queer Melancholy And Transgender Shame, Lake Davis

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Despite the affective turn in critical and cultural communication research, there is little scholarship on the interplay of affect, identity, and self-perception among transgender and non-binary individuals as they live within and chafe against dominant cisheteronormative discourses. With the understanding that affective sensations are products of acculturation and often reflect the demands of broader society, this thesis focuses on the sensation of shame within transgender bodies as a product of the imposition of categorical identifications onto individuals whose bodies, minds, and desires are rendered incoherent within the dominant cisheteronormative frame. Through qualitative autoethnography grounded in feminist, critical, and Queer theories, …

The Influence Of Internalized Heterosexism On Life Satisfaction: Comparing Sexual Minority Women In Belgium And Turkey, Esra Ummak, Ezgi Toplu-Demirtaş, Amber L. Pope, Jeffry Moe

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

To date, the majority of research studying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) health has been conducted in Westernized, predominantly individualistic countries. Building on minority stress theory and models of LGBTQ health, we explored how sexual orientation and nationality moderated the association between internalized heterosexism and life satisfaction for lesbian and bisexual (LB) women living in two countries (Turkey and Belgium) with contrasting social contexts. The results of two-way MANOVA, in a sample of 339 Turkish and 220 Belgian LB women, revealed main effects but no interaction effects. LB women in Belgium reported less internalized heterosexism and more life …

Before They Could Be Saved: Aids Voices Before Protease Inhibitors, Julian J. Willis

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore writing during the start of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. States. This time period encompasses the early 1980s to mid-1990s before Protease Inhibitors were FDA approved which was the medical breakthrough drug that helped turn an HIV diagnosis from a death sentence to a chronic condition. This thesis will be an examination of three themes: “Gay White Cis Male Experience of HIV/AIDS”,” Marginalized Identity Experience of HIV/AIDS” and an exploration of two plays written during the height of the AIDS epidemic that were later turned into HBO productions: The Normal Heart …

Bibliography, Cheryl Hopson

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Cheryl Hopson.

Bibliography, Alison Langdon

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Bibliography of publications by Alison (Ganze) Langdon.

Chronotropics: Caribbean Women Writing Spacetime, Odile Ferly, Tegan Zimmerman

Language, Literature, and Culture

This book deconstructs androcentric approaches to spacetime inherited from western modernity through its theoretical frame of the chronotropics. It sheds light on the literary acts of archival disruption, radical remapping, and epistemic marronnage by twenty-first-century Caribbean women writers to restore a connection to spacetime, expanding it within and beyond the region. Arguing that the chronotropics points to a vocation for social justice and collective healing, this pan-Caribbean volume returns to auhthonous ontologies and epistemologies to propose a poetics and politics of the chronotropics that is anticolonial, gender inclusive, pluralistic, and non-anthropocentric.

Table of Contents:

1 Introduction: Chronotropics, co-authored by Odile …

Untamed: The Terrifying Beauty Behind The Works Of Woman Surrealists, Shely Calderon Benpalti

MA Projects

An exhibition of work spanning the works of five late North American and Latin American born or naturalized female Surrealist artists, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), Remedios Varo (1908-1963), Leonor Fini (1907-1996) and Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012). Untamed explores themes of female existence, alchemy, astrology, dreams and symbolism through painting works on paper and photography. Between the dark years during the first world war, the second world war and postwar, Surrealism as a means of possibility to live a dream-like life were the theory behind this artist's body of work. The deception of dreams, parallel realities and profound studies into …

Childhood: The Hidden Side, Arcelia Gómez

MA Projects

Childhood has been typically perceived as the sweet, candid, innocent, harmless, naïve phase of the human existence. However, is it possible that behind this kind façade there are hidden the cruelest, most frightening and most devastating monsters of humankind? The current state of humanity, as a species, is constructed on constant movement, continually changing, perpetually evolving. This is a natural behavior, dating back to the very origins of civilization, in its earliest days. This characteristic detail is stored in the ability of the human brain to collect information and learn from situations experienced by the individual. In other words, the …

The Women Of Impressionism: The Influence Of Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, And Eva Gonzalès On The Art Market, Caroline Finden

MA Theses

My thesis addresses three overlooked female Impressionist artists, Berthe
Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Eva Gonzalès, the hardships that they faced during their lifetimes, the sociological and political influences that shaped their narratives, and the triumphs that allow us to call them great female artists today. Art historians and feminists alike, such as the exalted Linda Nochlin, have searched for understanding as to why so many extraordinary female artists have gone unnoticed throughout art history, often leaving more questions than answers. To better understand each of these women I analyze both an iconic work and the highest selling work at auction …

Manifesting Magic: Occultism And Feminism In The Art Of Leonora Carrington And Remedios Varo, Margaret Dirschl

MA Theses

The artworks of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo are replete with
/="/">symbolism and evocations of the occult, formulating bodies of work that are charged with magic and mysticism. When studied within the context of their male contemporaries of the Surrealist group, it becomes apparent that this use of the occult operates as a compelling and historically based feminist strategy. Immediately stemming from the occult revival of the previous century and the issues for females presented by Surrealism, the foundations of this idea originate much earlier in the pagan traditions of antiquity and the witch hunts of the 15th through …

Constructing (Un)Situated Women: Situated Knowledges In Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things (1997) And Balli K. Jaswal's Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows (2017), Necole T. Deloach

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This thesis applies Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledges” to postcolonial feminist novels such as Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Balli K. Jaswal’s Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows in order to illustrate why there needs to be a new framework for analyzing literary postcolonial women. Despite the applicability of Donna Haraway’s “situated knowledges” to postcolonial feminist literary studies, there has been little research published that analyzes not just the intersection of “situated knowledges” and postcolonial feminist literature, but also the problems that occur when Western scholars approach postcolonial texts without completely acknowledging their own worldview. I argue …

De Médée À La Sorcière : Reconstruction D’Un Mythe Par Michelet, Caroline Strobbe

The Coastal Review

In La Sorcière, Jules Michelet uses the strength and the myth of the Medea character, which had already fascinated Corneille. In the second part of his work, Michelet creates nominative witches after authentic texts. In the first part, he creates an allegoric witch on the Medea model: the Woman, a victim of arbitrariness, injustice and repression, rises up against her oppressors, figuring the march of Humanity towards Enlightenment and Liberty. The analogies between the Witch and Medea are therefore numerous and necessary, since they help to render the defense of the oppressed against the oppressor. Would the somber Medea, …

Diversity, Equity, & Exclusion: Examining Jewish Identity & Antisemitism As Missing Pieces Of Dei And Ethnic Studies Education, Katie Meitchik

Pitzer Senior Theses

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a theory and practice that focuses on systemic structures, inequities, and social change by examining concepts such as race, gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, and religion. Incorporating DEI initiatives into learning spaces can lead to a deeper sense of self, stronger coalition building, increased civic engagement, and a sense of healing, resistance, and belonging. Although a nationwide criteria for using DEI practices in education has not yet been implemented as a key component to public school teaching, there are programs emerging with the intent to utilize the theory. This has led to a movement …

Poems On Gender, Sexuality, And Kinship, Elisa Subin

Comparative Woman

The attached poems are a series thematically linked through gender, sexuality, and kinship.

Still, We Rise: Experiences Of Black Women In Leadership Positions At Predominately White Institutions, Dionne Lipscomb

Masters Theses

Despite the educational progress that Black women in the United States have made, they continue to be underrepresented in positions of senior leadership in all sectors including higher education (American Council on Education, 2017, 2023, de Brey et al., 2019). Because of their double minoritized status they also face bigger challenges in their positions than their White female, White male, and Black male counterparts. This narrative qualitative study utilized theory of othering and intersectionality to highlight the experiences of five Black women as they ascend to leadership positions at four-year predominately White institutions. The research questions guiding this study are: …

Identity And Perception Among Aspec Consumers Of Mass Media, Jericho Franke

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The portrayals of sex and romance, as well as asexuality and aromanticism, in mass media can have a profound impact on the way asexual and aromantic media consumers view relationships and their own identities, and affect the perception and treatment of the aspec community as a whole. This study uses mixed qualitative methods of online discourse analysis and participant interviews to examine the how mass media has shaped the self-perception and life experiences relating to sex and romance among aspec audience members.

5 Poems, Rebecca Ruth Gould

Comparative Woman

These poems examine the challenges facing the woman creator, and focus in particular on the problem of the muse, and how this relates to the feminist reconceptualization of traditional notions of gender and sexuality. As part of this broader poetic inquiry, I also challenge traditional notions of monogamy and heterosexual desire.

Kinship Poems, K. Avvirin Gray

Comparative Woman

In the appended collection of three poems, canopied under the title, ”Kinship Poems” I explore the possibilities for and practice of kinship between Native and African American women. In my first poem, ”Auntie,” a prose poem, I center non-sanguineous kinship affiliation in the decolonial project. In my final poem, I give equal consideration to biological kinship, by staging a speaker’s direct address to her unborn child.

Gotra I Choose, Aparajita Dutta

Comparative Woman

This poem is about kinship terms explored by a Bengali girl who came from West Bengal , India to Louisiana and found a family there after facing discrimination as an independent non-Brahmin woman.

Reverberations Of Boarding School Trauma In Upstate New York, Grace A. Miller

Comparative Woman

The legacy of boarding schools in Upstate New York is one that non-Natives seem to have forgotten. This historical amnesia compounds other acts of genocide, including cultural genocide, of the Haudenosaunee people throughout US history. Established in 1855 at the Cattaraugus Reservation (Seneca), the Thomas Indian School would serve as an institution of forced assimilation and displacement, much like the other Native American boarding schools. While the larger US population has grown to forget these schools' existence, the shadowed legacy of institutions, like the Thomas Indian School, Haskell, and Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the rippling effects of these schools’ practices …

Wolfpen Hollow, Amy Wright Vollmar

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

Ghazal Toward Knowing, Nilufar Karimi

Comparative Woman

No abstract provided.

Twitter As Limited Digital Rhetorical Forum – The Reproductive Rights Discourse Online, Jacob L. Longini

Comparative Woman

Rhetorical discourse has long been characterized by patriarchal systems, and this reality has persisted in online spaces. How might today’s scholar dissect and better understand the nature of online communities, specifically those that engage in women’s rights discourses? I argue that using Thomas Farrell’s notion of “rhetorical forum”, James P. Zappen’s outline for digital rhetorical theory, and Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s feminist understanding of rhetorical practice, one can account for the current state of such discourses on Twitter. The patriarchal flaws that Foss and Griffin identify in traditional rhetoric can shed light on the negative aspects of …

Magpies, Bridge And Goddess: Unearthing The Hidden Symbols And Rediscovering The Lost Goddess In Chinese Qiqiao Festival, Juan Wu

Comparative Woman

The Qiqiao Festival, also known as the Qixi Festival, or Chinese valentine’s day, is a festival celebrating the annual meeting of the Cowherd and Weaver Maid in mythology. The most influential version focuses on the romance or love theme; however, it ignores its underlying historical context, gender tension and mythical belief. This paper takes the texts, rituals and materials related to the Qiqiao festival to investigate its origin and evolution. First, it takes the anthological case of the Qiqiao festival in Xihe county to explore its core image of the holy bridge and Goddess Qiao. Second, it traces the bridge …

The Kin-Ship, Zheng Moham Wang

Comparative Woman

This is a group of two English poems the author composed separately in 2019 and 2021 about the imaginary scenes of his grandpa and mother from a Iu-Mien family of Southeast Asia and Southwestern China. The group was submitted to the upcoming Kinship volume of the Comparative Woman journal of Louisiana State University.

“By That Daughter’S Most Devoted Affection”: Anxious And Avoidant Attachments In Opie’S Adeline Mowbray, Meghan E. Hodges

Comparative Woman

Attachment theory, or the theory that one’s personality and social development is informed greatly by the infant-parent bond, largely arises in the 1950s with the work of John Bowlby. Although the phenomenon was only then beginning to be scientifically evaluated, it has long been observed that the relationship one has with one’s parents is a determinant factor in one’s development. This work investigates the impact of the failure to heal the insecure attachment Amelie Opie’s Adeline Mowbray (1808). Adeline, having grown up in her distant mother’s intellectual shadow, develops a neurotic attachment to her mother which causes romantic maladjustment in …

Ua12/2/74 Lambda Society, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Lambda Society