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John Xxiii Aids Ministries Christmas Party

Monterey County LGBTQ Histories Exhibit

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Reimagining The Single-Author Seminar: Teaching Wheatley Peters, Milton, And The Master’S Discourse, Kate Ozment

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This article discusses a senior-level literature course that puts into dialogue Phillis Wheatley Peters and John Milton. Wheatley Peters’ poetry on tyranny and freedom during the American Revolution, especially “America,” is compared to Milton’s Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, Areopagitica, and Paradise Lost, which explore the same themes during the English Civil War. Students trace how Milton’s transformative but narrowed ideas of freedom for enfranchised subjects in England are powerfully reimagined by Wheatley Peters in double meanings of freedom for the colonies and enslaved subjects. Secondary sources allow students to engage in the canon-building of Milton as …

A Review Of Ann Radcliffe's The Romance Of The Forest, Edited By Shelley King And John B. Pierce, Annette Hulbert

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

The Romance of the Forest has long been one of the most teachable of Ann Radcliffe’s Gothic novels, given its relatively shorter length and popularity at the time of its publication. Now, Shelley King and John B. Pierce have prepared with great thoroughness an updated version of the text for Broadview that proves a worthy successor to Chloe Chard’s Oxford World Classics edition, published in 1986. The edition builds on Chard’s notes and includes extensive historical appendices that would benefit both teachers and scholars of Radcliffe’s work.

The Untold Love Story Of Aphra Behn's The History Of The Nun, Anaclara Castro-Santana

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun (1688) is a complex narrative that challenges gender norms and moral conventions, while providing multifaceted illustrations of how restrictions of freedom engender rebellion. Erstwhile a critically neglected piece, this short novel has recently attracted renovated attention on account of its sophisticated narrative perspective, ambivalent moral, and general exploration of unconventional themes, including sexual nonconformity. Taking its cue from this critical landscape, this article explores the text’s queer dimensions, focusing on a crucial yet often overlooked scene depicting sapphic eroticism. Unpacking the internal dynamics and external implications of this passage, the essay argues for …

The Maternal Icon In Eleanor Sleath's The Orphan Of The Rhine, Esmeralda Orndorff, Joanne E. Myers

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In recent years, Eleanor Sleath’s long-neglected The Orphan of the Rhine has received attention as a valuable addition to the Gothic canon. In particular, critics have hailed the unconventionality of her worldly heroine Julie de Rubine. In this article, we resituate Julie’s exceptionalism in a specifically post-Reformation context, arguing that, in Julie, Sleath has created a powerful maternal icon whose mediating authority contests iconoclastic attacks on Marian devotion in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. Julie is, as critics have observed, the moral center of the text, and we show how that role is warranted specifically by her religiosity. Although partway through …

Introduction: Concise Collection On Teaching The Works Of Phillis Wheatley Peters, Mona Narain, Sarah Ruffing Robbins

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This short essay introduces a two-part Concise Collections special issue on teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters. It discusses how the life and works of the poet can be taught in various educational settings.

Methodological Revolutions For Teaching Phillis Wheatley Peters, Sam Plasencia

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This article describes a senior seminar I designed titled 'Phillis Wheatley Peters and Her Literary Afterlives,' which sought to (re)introduce Wheatley Peters to mostly white students as a literary foremother, and to do so by way of Black feminist writing that considers method. While nearly all of my students had encountered Wheatley Peters before my class, none had been asked to consider the methods by which we read her, and what different ones will allow and negate, make visible or foreclose. I thus organized this class around the methods that have emerged in the last twenty years, in order to …

A Review Of Debates In The Digital Humanities, Edited By Matthew K. Gold And Lauren F. Klein, Ashley Bender

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

A Review of Debates in the Digital Humanities, edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein

A Review Of Mary Beth Harris's A Genealogy Of The Gentleman: Women Writers And Masculinity In The Eighteenth Century, Megan A. Woodworth

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

A Review of Mary Beth Harris's A Genealogy of the Gentleman: Women Writers and Masculinity in the Eighteenth Century

Phillis Wheatley Peters’S British Publicity Campaign, Susan Carlile

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Scholarship has tended to place its focus on Phillis Wheatley Peters’ unsuccessful efforts in America, followed by an account of one British figure, the Countess of Huntingdon, who patronized the publication of Poems on Various Subjects in London in 1773. However, the chronology of the British campaign, the modes of print publication, and the locations in which Phillis Wheatley Peters’ words were published deserve closer attention. This essay highlights previously unknown or unremarked upon British publications outside London, the Drewry Derby Mercury, the Ipswich Journal, the Hibernian, and John Gillies’s Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend George Whitefield, …

Indigenous Language Guidelines And Resources, Shelby Johnson, Katarina O'Briain, Willow White

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

These collaboratively written guidelines offer suggestions and resources for writing about Indigenous Peoples, knowledge, and histories ethically and respectfully. With an awareness that this work is ongoing, that terms and language are subject to change, and that no set of guidelines or essays can fully account for diverse Native histories, these guidelines and resources offer suggestions for best practices for eighteenth-century scholars who are considering engaging in this work. The authors and contributors of this document understand that language is always evolving and that these guidelines may not be relevant indefinitely and in all circumstances. At some point, we imagine …

A Call To Examine Queer Instructors’ Identity Disclosures In The Classroom, Mac Clark

Feminist Pedagogy

Despite the academy and students’ attitudes progressing towards queer instructors (Boren & McPherson, 2018), there is limited scholarship regarding the disclosure of queer identities in the classroom. In ignoring issues of queer disclosure, the communication discipline fails to challenge heteronormative assumptions of instructor identity. My Critical Commentary asks feminist scholars to go beyond traditional conceptions of instructor identities to combat this marginalization. I assert researchers should prioritize deconstructing heteronormativity, apply queer theory, and revisit notions of the classroom closet in their scholarship. By doing so, I argue communication scholars will equip institutions to better support queer faculty and students alike.

Unraveling Communication Failure: Room For Revision, Jill Fredenburg

Feminist Pedagogy

"Unraveling Communication Failure: Room for Revision" delves into the intricacies of communication breakdowns, both at macro and micro levels, within the context of a general education public speaking course. Rooted in feminist pedagogy, the assignment encourages students to critically reflect on their least successful speech performance of the semester, analyzing societal and hegemonic influences impacting their communication dynamics. Through reflective analysis, students explore power dynamics shaping academic standards and their own positions within these norms. The assignment fosters an inclusive learning environment, empowering students to challenge hegemonic knowledge production and engage in self-directed learning. This paper outlines the rationale behind …

English Birth Girdles: Devotions For Women In “Travell Of Childe”, Mary Morse

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

In medieval England, women in labor wrapped birth girdles around their abdomens to protect themselves and their unborn children. These parchment or paper rolls replicated the “girdle relics” of the Virgin Mary and other saints loaned to queens and noblewomen, extending childbirth protection to women of all classes. This book examines the texts and images of nine English birth girdles produced between the reigns of Richard II and Henry VIII. Cultural artifacts of lay devotion within the birthing chamber, the birth girdles offered the solace and promise of faith to the parturient woman and her attendants amid religious dissent, political …

Wild Joy: An Exploration In Queer Spatial Dynamics, Kipper Thomas Reinsmith

Masters Theses

What does it mean to feel represented in a space?

What does a trans space look like?

How can we queer our interior spaces?

Our world is crafted by the many designers that have come before us. These systems, products, and spaces are built upon assumptions of the bodies that will use and occupy them—namely cisgender, able-bodied, straight folks.

Designing and creating objects as a trans person is an act of radical nature. To take up space, to design for trans luxury, for the sake of beauty, for joy itself, feels counterintuitive to the narratives we’ve been served: that of …

The Mental Health Experience Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Colombians: Que La Diversidad No Cueste La Vida, María Natalia Acosta Canchila

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Experiences of TGD people in various countries reflect difficulties accessing mental health services and significant mental health needs. In Colombia, experiences in broader healthcare systems suggest various barriers to care that include experiences of discrimination. However, specific experiences in mental health services have not been thoroughly examined. The current study aimed to understand the experiences, perceptions, and needs of TGD people in Colombia in mental health systems. Qualitative data was collected via 40 semi-structured interviews with TGD people in Colombia, data was analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Findings suggests great mental health needs related to needing support in the process …

A Mixed Method Examination Of Bipositivity As A Factor Protecting Cis, Trans, And Gender Expansive Plurisexual Women Against Harmful Sexual Violence Outcomes, Allison E. Cipriano

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Plurisexual women are more likely to experience sexual violence, post-traumatic stress (PTS), and alcohol use problems compared to women with single gender attraction. Disproportionately high rates of sexual violence may partially explain the prevalence of PTS and alcohol problems experienced by plurisexual women. Yet, research on sexual violence, PTS, and alcohol use problems have rarely specifically investigated these phenomena among plurisexual women. Researchers have identified a positive association between binegative experiences and risk of sexual violence among plurisexual women, suggesting that sexuality-based experiences may be connected to sexual violence victimization for this population. While identifying factors predicting risk of sexual …

Queer Impersonality: Compulsory Visibility And The Politics Of Form In Modernist Women's Life Writing, Margot Kotler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Modernist impersonality is an aesthetic practice typically associated with Anglo-European formalism and the doctrine of artistic autonomy. Although central to the modernist canon, impersonality has not been taken up by queer and feminist studies because critics have considered its implied evacuation of emotion and personal identity to be apolitical, and even dangerous. At its worst, impersonality reproduces an unmarked, white, and masculine subjectivity, yet it also questions the parameters of selfhood, posing a radical challenge to liberal-humanist conceptions of identity. Queer Impersonality moves beyond this critical impasse by tracing impersonality’s queer and feminist histories among modernist women writers whose engagement …

Bad Becomings: Autobiographical Writing, Queer/Trans Theory, Melancholia, Jacob Elias Aplaca

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bad Becomings surveys queer autobiographical works published over the last 30+ years to better understand the animosities and complicities of the queer and the so-called normative. While the limited scholarship on queer autobiographical writing has characterized this corpus of texts based on an edginess, a radicality, and a rejection of the liberal individual that both flies in the face of “traditional autobiography” and indulges queer theory’s persistent idealization of queer culture as radical and antinormative, this dissertation asks that we suspend our desire for so absolute a differentiation. Rather than assume that “queer” automatically makes “autobiography” radical and antinormative, I …

Defying Normativity: Reclaiming A Narrative Of Queer Resistance In Young Adult Literature, Christopher Morabito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the heart of this dissertation lies a single question: how Queer is Queer Young Adult Literature? As many scholars have argued, Queerness is, in many ways, a literacy, and literature is one of the greatest sponsors of Queer Literacy. While there is certainly no one comprehensive definition of what it means to be queer, it is also true that the general understanding of queerness has changed quite drastically in the last few decades. What was once used as a term to describe someone who is outside of social conventions has slowly begun to lose its sense of “otherness,” and …

Beyond Me: Class, Sexuality, And The Work Of The Autobiographical Fragments Of Audre Lorde, Dorothy Allison, And Eileen Myles, Erin E. Heiser

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation looks at what I am calling the “autobiographical fragments” of three working-class, lesbian (or queer) authors: Audre Lorde, Dorothy Allison, and Eileen Myles whose writing is stylistically quite different from one another’s, but who nonetheless have all produced bodies of work that represent bits of their lives over and over and in different ways, sometimes overlapping in time and narrative detail. While there are certainly other writers whose work shares many of the same characteristics, I argue that the autobiographical fragment has special significance for marginalized subjects. Woven throughout the dissertation are many of my own autobiographical fragments …

Uses Of The Intuition: The Role Of Intuition In Birth Work (Towards An Intuitive Epistemology), Kayla R. Reece

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Intuitive knowledge ought to be esteemed, practiced, and integrated alongside traditional forms of knowledge. The coloniality of knowledge has structured our society’s ways of thinking to suppress knowledges which reside in non-hegemonic formations and sources, such as our bodies and intuitions. This paper assesses the uses of the intuition as potential sites of an intuitive epistemology through the author’s experience as an intuitive tarot card reader and through the experiences of six BIPOC birth workers living and working in the United States. I conceptualize the intuition as embodied, relational, and predictive, which offers a framework that privileges information one can …

Looking For A Better Chair: The L Word And Learning How To Sit, Beans Fernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the 20 years since the initial airing of Showtime’s The L Word, the series has garnered a massive following among the sapphic and queer community and has cemented itself as a staple of queer media canon. Beyond the basic queer plotlines, though, The L Word captures lesbian and queer identity, politics, and livelihoods while using a seemingly superficial medium to portray queer bodies in a way that brings it to mainstream and cisheteronormative culture. Further, queer media like The L Word is able to guide members of the LGBTQ community into a queer consciousness and existence.

Alianzas Antimodernas: Estudios Del Cine Español Del Proceso 15m, Pedro Cabello Del Moral

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Anti-Modern Alliances: Studies of Spanish Cinema of the 15M Process mobilizes decolonial theory to shed new light upon the politics of the 15M (or Indignados) movement and its visual culture. It tackles anti-modern critiques as embodied in film characters who have been traditionally relegated to the margins of modernity’s grand narratives. The research corpus encompasses a diverse body of works –documentaries, fiction films, activist video essays and their paratexts, which I critically interrogate in dialogue with contemporary feminist, anti-racist, decolonial, anti-neoliberal and anti-ableist debates. Thus, the dissertation examines the methods by which audiovisual works from the past ten years have …

Community Awareness Of Domestic Violence In Arumeru District, Arusha, Tanzania, Rehema John Magesa

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Domestic violence continues to be prominent among many communities worldwide despite different efforts and strategies geared towards eradicating it. Women and girls are among the main victims of this violence. Lack of or limited awareness of the problem perpetuates the problem. However, much of the levels of awareness of the problem are lacking. This study aimed to establish community awareness of domestic violence and the levels of awareness and determine the association between respondents' characteristics and the level of awareness of gender-based violence. The study employed both probability and non-probability sampling techniques to acquire the respondents. One hundred women and …

A Journey To A Black Woman’S (Read Black Girl’S) Joy And Her Story Of Coming Home, Brittany Lauren Brock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is an auto/ethnography about the self-actualizing journey of reclaiming storytelling as my native tongue and my journey to joy. Throughout, using my story and the stories of so many others, I not only lay out the wounds (the pain, the loss, then the hope that comes) within the academy and outside in the world but I also use storytelling as a tool of healing—my tool of healing—to show how I wrote myself free.

When Black women (read Black girls) go through The Reckoning (the moment we realize something isn’t right with how we are perceived by others) …

Shake Ya Ass, But Watch Yourself: An Intersectional And Decolonial Approach To Exploring The Sexualization Of Female Recording Artists And The Empowerment Of Women In The United States, H.B. Rebeka

Dissertations

This dissertation, titled Shake Ya Ass, But Watch Yourself: An Intersectional and Decolonial Approach to Exploring the Sexualization of Female Recording Artists and the Empowerment of Women in the United States, critically examines the phenomenon of sexualization of women in the music industry and its impact on female empowerment. Through an intersectional and decolonial feminist lens, the study delves into the historical and socio-cultural contexts that shape the portrayal and perception of female recording artists in the United States.

The research traces the roots of feminism and the commodification of racial stereotypes through music, exploring how female empowerment has been …

Threading With Hair // Intertwined Stories, Cloris Ding

Masters Theses

“Threading with Hair // Intertwined Stories” is a poignant exploration that navigates the nuanced landscape of women's growth and identity recognition amidst biased societal influences, tracing the trajectory from the artist’s mother's generation to her own. Through a deeply personal lens, the thesis transcends individual narratives to articulate some shared female experiences. Employing reflective works in the form of jewelry, objects and writings, the study delves into female-centric topics, including the fluidity of identity, the transformative journey through various life stages, and the profound impact of societal expectations and family heritage. At the heart of this exploration is the metaphorical …

“Back From Cuba With Machetes And Cameras” Feminist Contour Lines Through The Venceremos Brigade: 1969-1971 And Today, Nicolette Bull

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the relationship between two political organizations formed in 1969: the Venceremos Brigade to Cuba and the U.S. feminist periodical Off Our Backs. The Venceremos Brigade was founded ten years after the Cuban Revolution, bringing groups from around the world to Cuba to cut sugarcane alongside local workers in an effort to bolster Cuban economic independence in the face of sanctions, then to travel the island for political education. Over half a century later, despite decades of counterrevolutionary opposition to the program, the Venceremos Brigade is still active and currently preparing for the departure of its 53rd …

Antisocial Femininity: Writing The Relational In Isolation, Chelsea K. Largent

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates a trope and positionality I call antisocial femininity as a way to see how it may be a useful positionality and not antisocial at all. The point of departure for my project is located in 19^th century French decadence and responds to two complementary aspects of decadent subjectivity against which antisocial femininity is defined: the need to withdrawal from the natural world and a retreat into intellectual abstraction. These definitions demand an explicit withdrawal from society and extol a self-imposed isolation that allows the subject to recreate oneself uniquely outside of the structures of modernity. This …