Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Performing Nefertiti: Feminist Afterlives Across Museum, Digital, And Cosmetic Cultures, Zaryab Khan

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines the afterlives of Nefertiti’s bust as performances that stage the intersections of gender, empire, and visual culture. Moving beyond biographical reconstruction, it argues that the bust operates as a repertoire of performances continually re-scripted across cultural sites. Three case studies structure the analysis: the staging of Nefertiti in Berlin’s Neues Museum, which performs colonial possession and the aestheticization of feminine beauty; the digital intervention The Other Nefertiti (2015), which performs resistance through the circulation of unauthorized 3D scans; and the cosmetic “Nefertiti lift,” which performs the queen’s visage through contemporary bodies, inscribing antiquity as a template for …

“As Bachelors Very Exceptional”: An Asexual Reading Of Frodo Baggins, Danna Petersen-Deeprose

Journal of Tolkien Research

Queer Tolkien scholarship has seen a number of homosexual readings of Frodo Baggins. While there are indeed many elements within the text that support a queer reading, it is a mistake to insist that queer elements necessarily point to homosexuality. This article advances an alternative queer reading of Frodo: an asexual reading. Drawing queer and asexual scholarship, including Ela Przybylo, Danielle Cooper, Audre Lorde, and Jack Halberstam, this article examines Frodo’s actions, journey, and characteristics through an asexual lens, focusing on his solitary life in the Shire, the way he is perceived by the other Hobbits, his lack of any …

Fighting Like A Girl: The Trauma, Power, And Resistance Of Heroines In Young Adult Fantasy, Sara L. Chappell

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

This thesis examines the evolution of female rage in young adult fantasy literature, focusing primarily on Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series while drawing comparisons to other contemporary heroines. It argues that female rage is not a sign of instability but a politically meaningful response to trauma and systemic oppression. Using trauma theory, affect theory, and narrative identity theory, this project traces how Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s rage develops from a physiological survival response into protective care, political resistance, and ultimately reclaimed agency. Early in the series, her anger emerges as dissociation and emotional shutdown shaped by trauma and institutional …

Between Authenticity And Exploitation: Rethinking The Intended Audience Of Sean Baker's Tangerine, Ava Brandt

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Sean Baker's Tangerine (2015) has generated genuinely divided responses among trans critics, and for good reason. This paper takes that division seriously, using two reviews published on Autostraddle within six weeks of each other to frame a central question: who is Tangerine actually for? Existing scholarship on trans cinema has tended to evaluate films on a spectrum from exploitative to affirming, but this paper argues that framework is insufficient for a film like Tangerine, which operates as both simultaneously. Through close reading of the film alongside its production history, paratexts, and reception, and drawing on Paige Macintosh's scholarship on trans …

Taylor Swift, Gender, And Feminism: What Do The Data Say?, Maxine Lewis

The Manuscript: Journal of Taylor Swift Studies

In the world of Swiftian scholarship, several scholars have credited Taylor Swift with feminist impact, while others have criticized both her type of feminism and claims to be a feminist. Many arguments rest on a narrow group of protest songs (“The Man”, “You Need To Calm Down”, and “Only The Young”) and a short period of Swift’s career in which she made many paratextual political gestures (2019-2020). However, claims about a songwriter’s feminism (or lack thereof) will be more accurate, robust, and nuanced if they draw on data from her whole career.

This article provides the first systematic survey of …

From Viðkenning To Valarindi: The Enigma Of Goldberry And The River-Woman, Derek Simon

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

THIS IS A TWO-PART ARTICLE. IN ORDER TO READ OR DOWNLOAD THE OTHER PART, FOLLOW THE LINK AT THE END OF THIS ABSTRACT.

Building upon the previous examination of the eddic and skaldic contours of Goldberry’s River kenning names, this reading of Goldberry’s enigma focuses on the mythological referents of her kinship relations and their narrative consistency in the legendarium.  Tending to the intrinsic connection between “[t]he incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale” (Tolkien, On Fairy Stories, 41), I contend that the poetics of kenning diction sustain if not demand a reading of the River-woman references mythologically through …

"Black History Is Black Horror": Hauntology And Cultural Trauma In 20th And 21st Century Black Women's Gothic Horror, Destini S. Beckwith

Theses

Octavia Butler’s Afrofuturistic, gothic horror, neo-slave narrative Kindred (1979) vividly illustrates the story of a woman, Dana, involuntarily time-traveling from her home in 1976 Los Angeles, California, to a plantation in 19th-century Maryland. The interactions that she has with her ancestors, such as Alice, a free Black woman, and Rufus, a white man who enslaves Alice, leave Dana mentally and physically scarred. The 20th-century novel is meant to graphically reflect on the horrors of enslavement and the mental and physical effects that Black people endured/still endure because of it (i.e., grief, racial violence, and post-traumatic stress disorder). Furthermore, the novel’s …

What To Do With An Improper Woman: Gender Roles And Their Repercussions In Great Expectations, Abby Shaver

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Nonbinary Gender Performance And Self-Identification In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Lillian R. Durr

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein, a text informed by a rich Romantic era philosophical tradition, has produced an expansive contemporary body of transgender studies scholarship. Building on transgender literary studies of Frankenstein, my thesis analyzes the difference between the monster’s internalized self-perceived identity and their externally performed and perceived identity. I interpret the difference between the monster’s internal and external identity as an analogy through which to understand contemporary nonbinary experiences. The “performance” of gender that Judith Butler describes is a limited expression of an internal, inescapable, ontological experience of self-identification. The monster’s own social experience illustrates the …

Resistance And Innovation: The Cultural Work Of Popular Romance Novels, Chelsee M. Niebergall

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Popular romance fiction is the highest-grossing genre in contemporary publishing, yet it remains one of the least examined in academic scholarship. As this thesis argues, while texts of this genre have been marginalized and stigmatized for their perceived lack of literary sophistication, they prove to be some of the most radical in terms of cultural impact. Their dismissal is not incidental but symptomatic of the very systems of oppression the romance novels work to disrupt. This thesis will examine these radical texts and uncover the cultural work they perform on their readers by using an analytical framework newly developed here, …

Modernism’S Wild Child: The Interplay Of Modernist And Children’S Literature, Rachel Riffel

All Master's Theses

Within literary criticism, American and British modernism are often characterized by the disillusioned writers and creators who established an elitist literary community during the early 20^th century. This period is also distinguished by the Harlem Renaissance highlighting Black art, culture, and writing. Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps are well-known for contributing core texts to modernism and the Harlem Renaissance that expressed existential themes and developed experimental techniques. What many readers don’t know, however, is that these authors and many other contemporaries wrote stories and poetry for children. In this thesis, I explore the children’s …

A Visual Analysis Of Sogie-Themed Children’S Storybooks From Mulat Sulat, Audrey Leigh T. De Leon, Cassandra Louise A. Ma, Jennifer Shan E. Ou, Belle Beatriex' M. Alemania

Sinaya: A Philippine Journal for Senior High School Teachers and Students

Children’s storybooks play a crucial role in the significance of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression (SOGIE) and the realities of gender-based representation. Although previous literature has analyzed books through textual analysis, there remains a gap in the visual analysis of SOGIE-themed Filipino children’s books. Therefore, this study focuses on the visual representation of characters in five storybooks published under the Mulat Sulat project in 2018. This research employed the first three levels of Rodriguez and Dimitrova’s (2011) visual framing framework to analyze how illustrations are depicted through various visual elements. Additionally, this study utilized Bisht’s (2020) coding template to …

Sex, The Body, And Learning Gender: Demons In The World Of The Five Gods, Erin E. Mcbrien

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

“Sex, the Body, and Learning Gender” analyzes the relationship between the physical body, sexual orientation, and gender as characterized within Lois McMaster Bujold’s World of the Five Gods series, with a particular emphasis on her Penric and Desdemona novellas. Using the framework of Bussey and Bandura’s social learning theory, and a close reading of Bujold’s text, this paper explores how the demonic characters within this series are an example of gender as a learned concept rather than a biological imperative. This is further developed by examining how the demonic characters both imprint on and contrast against the more societally-bound sorcerers …

Re-Membering Self, Rewriting Histories, Reclaiming Futures: Chicanafuturist Agency In V. Castro's The Haunting Of Alejandra, Julia Reade

Regeneración: A Xicanacimiento Studies Journal

Re-membering Self, Rewriting Histories, Reclaiming Futures: Chicanafuturist Agency in V. Castro's The Haunting of Alejandra by Julia Reade.

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

From Fort To Prison: The Production Of Iloilo City, Ram Paulo A. Anayan

Akda: The Asian Journal of Literature, Culture, Performance

The foundation of colonial cities in the Philippines rests on violence. The Spanish policies of the reducción forced the natives to settle in pueblos where colonial power is ensured. The resistance of some natives brought about the divide between tagabayan (town dweller) and tagabundok (mountain dweller)—respective connotations of civilization and savagery (Lumbera and Lumbera, 36). This paper examines how this centripetal-centrifugal force of simultaneous identity-production and displacement is echoed in the metonymy of the fort on which the origins of Iloilo City stand. I navigate how this movement manifests in the consciousness of the city across historical periods represented by …

"It Is Always Too Late For Truth:" Surveillance And Masculinity In "Wide Sargasso Sea", Kaz S. Schofield

2025 Fall Honors Capstones Projects - Archive

Significant analysis has been done on Jean Rhys’ 1961 novel Wide Sargasso Sea examining gender in relation to the women in the novel, but very little analysis has been conducted on the men. Using the work of Simone Browne, who has theorized how racial categories are maintained through surveillance, I examine how three men in the novel: a white colonist and two mixed race colonial subjects are restricted or otherwise kept docile through their differing masculinity. I argue that it is not only the women in the novel who are oppressed or otherwise disenfranchised by their race and gender, but …

“Of Their Women We Hear Less”: Pride And Prejudice In The Tale Of ‘Aldarion And Erendis.’, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

In discussing J.R.R. Tolkien’s Second Age “Tale of the Mariner’s Wife,” past scholars have used descriptors such as ‘resentful’, ‘strong-willed’, ‘unhappy’ – even ‘misandrist’. There can be no doubt that this is a story of a deeply unhappy marriage between two people with irreconcilable differences, to use the modern parlance of the divorce courts, but it would also be true to say that Erendis seems to come out of the narrative with a more sullied reputation than her husband. In fact, Aldarion appears to have everything he could have wanted, such as his freedom to sail and an heir for …

No One Listens To Melian: When Women Speak And Men Ignore Them In Middle-Earth, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

Throughout J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium, opportunities exist for male characters to participate in and learn from the wisdom and experience offered by female characters: what is remarkable is how often they fail to do so. The consequences of this failure are often considerable, ranging from a failed marriage (Aldarion and Erendis) to the loss of an entire kingdom (Melian and Thingol). However, on one occasion where a female character, Aredhel, is listened to, she is then severely punished via the narrative. The question must therefore be asked – what is Tolkien telling us about this gendered space of learning?

At Home In Horror: Women And Body Horror, Brooklynn Kreps

University Honors Theses

While most discussion around the subgenre of body horror focuses on its birthplace of film, the richest iterations come from women writing body horror fiction to explain the experience of womanhood. As body horror focuses on fear of painful or absurd mishap with the body. Women experience pain or absurdity in their own bodies every day with processes like menstruation, pregnancy, puberty, and heightened chances of becoming a victim of sexual assault. Furthermore, women experience society's forceful shaming and fear about natural processes of the body and experiences such as anger and sexual desire. Using this idea as a framework, …

"You Know The Rules": A Dramatic Experiment In Aromantic Literary Theory, April Chronowski

English

This paper proposes a new literary theory framework based on the zine "an aromantic manifesto" by yingchen and yingtong, as well as the work of Erving Goffman, using theater as a device to examine romantic relationships. Blending English and sociology, I focus each chapter on a different literary period and examine two plays each: early modern (Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing), modern (Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Djuna Barnes' "To The Dogs"), and contemporary (Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 and Margaret Edson's W;t). In tandem with analysis of formal elements---like …

The Shame Of (Be)Longing In Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy, Grace S. Miholic

All Theses

This thesis examines the role of shame in Kincaid's Lucy. Separated into four separate sections, the thesis moves through Lucy’s relationship with her boss, Mariah, her Antiguan mother, and the shame that is identified at the end of the novel. In the introduction, I identify the passage that frames the novel around shame. I then identify my thesis, which centers around Lucy’s shame and her inability and refusal to situate herself with neither Mariah nor her mother’s expectations. The second section of the thesis revolves around Mariah and the form of feminism that skews her perception and expectations of …

Her Hideous Progeny: Frankenstein'S Legacy, Adaptability, And Contemporary Prominence To Critical Story Telling, Ryan Penske

English (MA) Theses

This thesis situates the narrative of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley with two contemporary adaptations Get Out (2017) by Jordan Peele and Poor Things (2023) by Yorgos Lanthimos. The original 1818 Frankenstein text is composed of different discourses about race, gender, monstrosity, and what it means to be an abject other. As a text full of critical discourse, it has reached great popular culture legacy and has become adapted numerous times over the past two centuries. This thesis explores and acknowledges instances where the text has been adapted and applied to harmful discourses, such as British Prime Minister George Canning’s use …

Odd Girls, Pulp Fiction And Lesbians, Natalie Aronson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

1957’s Odd Girl Out, a novel written by Ann Bannon, reminds readers, past, present and future, of the ever-growing need for positive queer representation. This project’s main goal is to take a look at the genre of Pulp Fiction novels of the 1950s, and examine how queer representation – specifically lesbian representation – has been written. Paul Thompson’s Masculinity in Lesbian “Pulp” Fiction is a text I use throughout, as it not only examines the genre overall, but also delves into Bannon’s ever-growing impact, providing much-needed context for the novels. While the genre of Pulp Fiction novels, queer or not, …

The Masc Of Masculinity: Multimodal Analysis Of Contemporary Punk Music, James L. Stanfield Iii

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis establishes a multi-genre framework of various theories from different academic fields that is then used to view the multimodal elements of punk and hardcore music performances. The analyses are tailored towards the dissection of traditional masculinity with the goal of constructing masculine avatars that are prosocial and moral. Reworking traditional masculinity is a portion of the larger fight for social reform that is taken up within the field of the humanities. Existing critical approaches to masculinity often establish the need for a rewriting of normative masculinity in society but often do not provide methods for such a rewriting. …

Human Dignity And Prostitution, Clara Kernodle

Harding Undergraduate Research Conference

In the twenty-first century, it is common to see feminists and pro-sex work voices lauding prostitution and other forms of the sex industry as viable expressions of women’s sexual and financial agency. As long as every participating party consents, they argue, sex work is not only tolerable, but admirable and positive – a form of transaction or service deserving license, protection, and respect in the name of individual freedom and female agency. Such voices argue that prostitution can even be dignified, as the sex industry supposedly allows participants full freedom to express their sexuality. In this paper, I offer an …

He Said, She Said: Deconstructing Gender In Our Own World Through Our Own Languages, William K. Coulthard

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Both language and gender are social constructs which we humans have created to produce an order to the world, and this essay illustrates the ways in which language influences both our perceptions of gender and the world of people who subvert so-called natural gender norms. Because gender, unlike sex, is a social construct to which we ascribe particular images and words, language can affect not only the identity of the person in question but also their relationships, careers, and societal attitudes toward gender. Ursula Le Guin, in her 1969 science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness, deconstructs our earthly …

Death Becomes Us: The Consumptive Body In Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature, Jennifer Marie Mcmahon

All NMU Master's Theses

This thesis examines the impacts of nineteenth-century tuberculosis epidemics on gothic literature published between 1842 and 1872. In this period of time, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States and in Europe, killing an estimated one in seven people. Using theoretical lenses of psychoanalysis and material ecocriticism, this project considers borders between material bodies—specifically those between bacterial agents and humans—to be illusory and socially constructed. The first chapter focuses on the ways in which representations of tuberculosis, and its associated entanglement with the environment, appear in the work of two authors from the United States: Edgar …

Monstrous Feminine, Deviant Mother: Tolkien’S Shelob And The Grotesque Maternal, Sara Brown

Journal of Tolkien Research

J.R.R. Tolkien’s menacing character of Shelob embodies the ultimate danger that faces Frodo on his journey to destroy the Ring of Power. Her actions, in combination with the language that Tolkien uses to describe her, invite the reader to view Shelob with revulsion and horror, designating her as Other. However, Shelob is also undeniably a mother, a term laden with social and cultural expectation. This paper explores Shelob as a representation of what Barbara Creed, in her article “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”, has termed the ‘monstrous-feminine’, examining Shelob’s presentation within the text as not only identified as …

The Mariner (And His Wife): Rethinking Aldarion's (A)Sexuality, Rory M. Queripel

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

“Aldarion and Erendis” (Unfinished Tales) is a rare example in Tolkien’s work of a marriage gone severely awry. Many readings of the tale apportion blame to Aldarion, who is seen as “unwilling” to make the marriage work, and cruel and unfeeling towards Erendis, who herself is characterised as resentful and unaccepting. However, these readings rely on an assumption of a cisheteronormative and, more importantly, allosexual relationship between the couple. This paper proposes an alternate view of Aldarion and his role in the story, suggesting the possibility that he is asexual and/or aromantic (i.e., he does not experience sexual …