Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

International Relations From Below: Teaching Absences In International Relations, Tamara Soukotta

Feminist Pedagogy

For four years (2017-2022) I was part of a teaching team to teach the subject of International Relations (IR) to second-year Bachelor International Studies students. The course was structured to have twelve lectures; these lectures were to be delivered by the course leaders to an audience of 500-800 students. In addition to the lectures, students had four tutorial classes, where the rest of the teaching team worked with smaller groups of students (12-15 students in each group). These classes were designed to help the students link theories and practices. As a woman of colour teaching IR in a Dutch university, …

From Vertical To Horizontal Empowerment Of Women (In) Peace And Security: Toward A Feminist Perspective Of Human Security, Ma. Lourdes Veneracion-Rallonza

Political Science Department Faculty Publications

Human security, a people-centered approach to security, typically seeks to examine vulnerabilities and identify ways of protecting people from threats. However, people are not perennial victims—they also have agency and are capable of acting on their own. This study looks at how the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda has created both the discursive and actual spaces for women's agency, particularly in the case of women's civil society organizations (CSOs), as illustrated by their work on the ground. This chapter investigates how the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute (GZOPI), Sulong Peace, and Women Engaged in Action on United Nations Security …

Mama’S Got A Brand New Degree: Education And Changing Perceptions Of Femininity During The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), Eden E. Baize

The Cardinal Edge

Bloody struggles, tense political debates, and general unease characterized Mexico in the early twentieth century. Under former president Porfirio Díaz, tensions grew as the lower classes pleaded for labor and land reform, culminating in a violent period of revolution from 1910 to 1917. As with all conflicts of this scale, the Mexican Revolution prompted the challenging of many long standing social conventions, specifically as they pertained to the role of government and the organization of social classes. With the restructuring of society already underway, many activists capitalized on the uncertainty of the era to push against the subjugation of women. …

Politics Of Refusal: Justice And Liberation For Black Trans Lives, Quincy Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis investigates the challenges faced by Black trans people. In this thesis, I will explore how protest is used to highlight and confront the obstacles faced by the Black trans community. I will also examine the cultural work of Black trans people and what they teach us. The Brooklyn Liberation march and the TV show Pose is an important part of Black trans legacy. They both look at the complications surrounding Black trans lives and contributes to Black trans representation in protesting and fighting marginalization. This thesis will argue the importance of allyship to create safe space for Black …

Ambivalent Scales: Methods For Reading Scenes Of Sexual Violation, Natalie Ruby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The importance of unveiling rape in the #MeToo era has unintentionally obscured encounters that lack the clarity of “yes” or “no.” However, desire can be ambiguous even in unambiguous cases of assault. Feminist activists and scholars have started to address ambiguity by arguing for a new epistemology of rape, what Linda Alcoff calls “grey rape.” In this thesis, I interrogate the “grey” embedded in ordinary sexual encounters by looking at ambivalence as an example of everyday desire evident across the seduction plot and the novel tradition. Rather than seeking to make consent more inclusive to oppressed groups, I read between …

Choric Sounds: The Intervention Of Women’S Soundscapes In The City And Cinema, Kelli Fuery

Film and Media Arts Faculty Articles and Research

"This paper proposes that sonic mapping of space, sensibility and power structures through cinematic representation of urban places has subsequently taken on imaginations that have become part of socio-cultural and socio-political experience. Sound and image have combined, establishing a spectoral environment that enables the viewer to engage both inner and outer worlds in embodied perception. Mary Beard notes, ‘when written evidence for Western culture starts, women’s voices are not being heard in the public sphere. … an integral part of growing up, as a man, is learning to take control of public utterance and to silence the female of the …

Lgbtq+ Adults During Post-Breakup Appraisals: Understanding Adaptive Communication Coping Mechanisms Following The Termination Of A Non-Heterosexual Romantic Relationship, Nur E Makbul

Dissertations

This study highlights the intersections among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and/or Other Non-Heterosexual (LGBTQ+) individuals' and/or communities' experiences with romantic relationships, relationship crises, emotional appraisals, coping mechanisms, and cyber tech practices. It employs a mixed-method approach, including in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ participants and a digital ethnographic investigation of social media platforms. The theoretical framework and review of literature have been drawn from the queer perspectives of numerous critical cultural theories, and media and communication theories. Interviews with LGBTQ+ participants largely demonstrate three distinct mechanisms of coping, including emotional, behavioral, and psychological that LGBTQ+ individuals use after the termination of …

Generative Ai And Opportunities For Feminist Classroom Assignments, Sarah F. Small

Feminist Pedagogy

Handwringing about ChatGPT and generative AI has penetrated teaching circles. Many educators are concerned it will disrupt education in negative ways. However, I introduce two approaches to assignments in which students work in tandem with AI to develop better understandings of reflexivity and feminist epistemology. I believe, if we are intentional in our teaching practice, our educational responses to generative AI can be in feminist directions.

The Feminist Keyword Project: Literature Reviews As Feminist Praxis, Krystal Cleary

Feminist Pedagogy

The Feminist Keyword Project is a scaffolded series of assignments that culminates in a literature review of the student’s chosen keyword. It is designed for intermediate undergraduate students who acquired a foundational feminist vocabulary in their introductory classes. Building upon this baseline fluency, the project shifts students’ understanding of course concepts from a glossary of terms to politicized feminist gatherings. The project is informed by the tradition of the keyword entry genre to move students beyond merely defining their chosen term to narrating it as a site of feminist discourse in and outside of academia. In doing so, the Feminist …

Responding To Disproportionate Skin Cancer Rates Affecting Adult Men Aged 18-60, Aaron Thompson

Capstone Collection

Skin cancer is a deadly disease that kills significantly more men than women every year. At the same time, women are more than twice as likely to apply daily sun protection factor (SPF) than men. This research study explores how key stakeholders within the skin care industry have responded to the data showing increasing disparities between male and female skin cancer rates. To fulfill the objectives of this research study, qualitative data was collected from six semi-structured interviews with adult males between the ages of 18 and 60. The interviews were intentionally designed to engage with the American, adult male’s …

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-One. Twenty-One. Twenty-Three. Twenty-Four. Twenty-Five. Twenty-Six., Liza Lacroix

Theses and Dissertations

"One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-one. Twenty-three.Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six." is a biographical fiction of violence toward the protagonist. Comprised of writing, audio, documentation and intervention. This text is the first iteration, and the thesis work is the second iteration of the same.

Linguistic Features Of Metaphor, Metonymy And Narrative Gap In “The Yellow Wallpaper:” A Literary Analysis, Sherry Kaye Ms.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1890, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a piece of fiction that reflected her personal experience for treatment of nervous exhaustion. The story she developed created controversy and comment after it was published and, years later, agitation among feminists who found allegories of truth in its narrative. This thesis explores the use of linguistic features employed by Gilman to establish cognitive connections between physical structures and social institutions, such as marriage and domesticity, that confine women within contractual obligations. Gilman’s use of extended metaphor challenges conventional conceptions of the home, inanimate objects, and institutional authority and her use of metonymy extrapolates …

Long In The Tooth: The Commodification Of Teeth, Land, And Character; Resistance To British Oral Culture In Nineteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, And The Americas 1770-1900, Emma B. Mincks

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation is about teeth- rather, how they are portrayed in British colonial discourses of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and their development as a commodified material object associated with purity, lands, and visceral emotionality. What do teeth specifically, and orality more generally, mean to eighteenth and nineteenth-century readers in relation to the logics of white possession? How did objectified subjects react to and respond to the affective tension created by this objectification? Teeth are represented in relation to feminine purity throughout British writing from at least the 1600’s. However, between 1770-1900, teeth gain additional cultural meanings, most …

The Haunting Aesthetics Of Empire: Filipinx America, Us Empire, And Cultural Production, Alana J. Bock

American Studies ETDs

Throughout this dissertation, I argue that US imperial knowledge production affirms US exceptionalism by disavowing the imperial violence wrought on the Philippines and its people. This disavowal not only renders the Philippines and Filipinx bodies illegible, but also haunts the Filipinx American diaspora. I argue that the haunted logics of empire are a set of relations, rather than specters of specific times and places, in which knowledge and power work together to continually produce and reproduce a specific and limiting reality and sensorium through which to view the world. In my interrogation of empire’s haunted logics, I not only look …

Mrs. Dalloway (1925) Vs. The Hours (2002): How Does The Patriarchy Infringe On The Autonomy Of Marginalized Characters?, Mary E. Belton

2023 Symposium

Fans of Virginia Woolf know that her literature, such as A Room of One’s Own and Mrs. Dalloway, cover feminist themes. In adaptations of Virginia Woolf’s work, the same feminist themes are present. For example, Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, based on three women whose lives are connected through Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, carries similar feminist themes. In the 2002 adaptation of The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry, the relationships between men and women in the film illustrate how the patriarchy operates socially.

To those who don’t know Virginia Woolf’s work well or are unaware of how …

Using Queer Of Color Theory To Analyze Latinidad, Maria I. Castro-Mendoza

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

Queer of Color Theory (QOCT) has emerged as a new field of study with the rise of LGBTQ+ visibility in the modern day political landscape. QOCT is an extended analysis of queer theory that explicitly and intentionally takes into account race, imperialism, and colonialism. Queer of color theory can be used to create or expand upon an already existing theory, and has roots in Black feminism. Using queer of color theory as a method of analysis, this essay discusses the black and indigenous erasure within the Latinidad movement and seeks to examine those who have been systemically left out of …

The Avenging Women: Grendel’S Mother, Signy, And Kriemhild, Kayla J. Baur

Publications and Research

The three respective texts, the Old English poem Beowulf, the Old Norse The Saga of the Volsungs, and the Middle High German text Nibelungenlied, feature female characters who fulfill the avenging woman archetype. In each of the three works, the female character uses unfeminine strength or cunning to exact vengeance for being wronged. In Beowulf, the avenging woman takes the form of Grendel’s mother, whose descriptions of monstrosity are owed to her acts of bloodshed to avenge the death of her son. In The Saga of the Volsungs, the vengeful plot enacted by Signy reveals her unusual display of cunning …

Editors’ Introduction, Aurora Matzke, Louis M. Maraj, Angela Clark-Oates, Anyssa Gonzalez, Sherry Rankins-Robertson

English Faculty Articles and Research

"When we proposed this special issue, we sought to illuminate the conceptual and embodied contact zones we discuss above. Tensions that, for us, were centered by scholars and attendees who participated in any of the three CCCC Feminist Workshop between 2021-2023 when the majority of the editors of this special issue co-chaired. During that time frame, CCCC’s shifted from in-person to fully online to hybrid due to COVID-19 and attempted to move toward more national and international attendance inclusivity. With this organizational backdrop, it was during the 2021 CCCC Feminist Workshop that we grappled with coalition as a commonplace."

Women's Work: The Sublime Is Now, Michelle Blackstone

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

What influences the lens through which we view art and the value we ascribe to it? This paper investigates the ways in which the historically gendered philosophy of “The Sublime,” a lack of institutional access, and traditionally gendered materials have acted as impediments for women in the arts. Discussion is given to the ways that masculine rhetoric in terms of “The Sublime” prevented women from attaining what was once considered the highest level of artistic achievement. Further attention is given to obstructions female artists face(d) in terms of gaining intuitional access within the art world. Finally, I examine the ways …

Dinesen’S Diana: The Transformative Power Of Symbols In Ehrengard, Aishwarya A. Marathe

Anthós

This analysis of Dinesen's Ehrengard aims to illuminate the subversive transformation of the titular character of the novel, using the literal and symbolic application of artistic power.

A "Misfit" Revision: Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable And Transitional Stardom In Postwar Hollywood, Emily Carman

Film and Media Arts Faculty Articles and Research

Director John Huston’s The Misfits (1961) was one of the most volatile productions of his career, with its ensemble cast headlined by a trio of screen icons: Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift. Drawing on new archival research, I argue that The Misfits illuminates the transition from old to New Hollywood in terms of its behind-the-scenes star negotiations of Gable and Monroe, who had varying levels of creative control to appear in the film. My analysis of their respective deals underscores how The Misfits anticipates the shift from the female driven star system of Classical Hollywood to the male …

Vainuku, T., & Duffy, R. (Directors). (2022). Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’T Exist [Documentary]. Netflix., Ashley P. Ferrell

Feminist Pedagogy

Untold: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist (2022) revisits the complicated fame and misfortune of former college football player Manti Te’o. The documentary traces the arc of Te’o’s athletic career at the University of Notre Dame alongside his relationship with his girlfriend that resulted in intense public scrutiny and gendered ridicule in 2013. Untold offers feminist pedagogues a catalyst for engaging students in critical discourse around the relationships between collegiate sport and race, gender, and sexuality. In this review, I provide a summary of the documentary’s main points and framing, and then discuss at least two ways in which this media …

The Death And Rebirth Of The Feminine Muse: Edgar Allan Poe And Sylvia Plath, Noha Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

While drawing on mythology and a literary history that associated women with death as well as creativity, Edgar Allan Poe and Sylvia Plath experimented with binary oppositions such as masculine/feminine, composition/decomposition, and death/(re)birth. They gained inspiration from the same source, the dead muse, but how do they transform traditions that derive from classical and medieval literary precedent, perhaps in ways that are inherently critical of patriarchal modes of gender dynamics? Why is Poe fixated on a feminine dead muse while Plath is inspired by what she calls her “father-sea-god muse”? How do both authors represent the female body, and how …

Gender Washing Autocracies In Egypt: Drawing On The Presidency’S Of Anwar El Sadat And Hosni Mubarak, Menat Aly

Theses and Dissertations

Research Question:

The main research question this study seeks to address is: Why did the autocratic regimes of Anwar el Sadat and Hosni Mubarak choose to advance women’s rights?

Hypothesis:

Autocratic governments under Sadat and Mubarak used gender instrumentally, and their focus on empowering women in their societies was functional to promoting their vision of "modernization" internationally and to enhancing their image, while at the same time concealing their autocratic practices.

Research Problem

Authoritarian [1]systems in the Arab world have long used different tactics in order to consolidate their regimes. Indeed, one such tactic is the use of gender …

Encoding/Decoding Identity: Communication In Carson Mccullers’ The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Sarrah Wolfe

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

N/A

"It's Not The Same Anymore" (2023): A Reflection On The Creative Process Behind My Queer Coming-Of-Age Short Film, Olivia Lee

University Honors Theses

"It's Not The Same Anymore" stands as a poignant queer coming-of-age short film crafted by individuals who share the queer experience, with the intention of resonating deeply with the queer community. The narrative intimately captures the journey of a young queer woman as she navigates the realms of love, heartbreak, and the quest for self-discovery. Amidst a media landscape that frequently falls short in its representation of LGBTQ+ voices and authentic lived experiences, this film aspires to bridge the gap and bring forth a much-needed sense of belonging and recognition.

A link to the short film can be found here: …

“Come Think With Me”: Finding Communion In The Liberatory Textual Practices Of Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jehan L. Roberson

Criticism

Defining text as anything that can be read, self-identified learner and artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores reading as radical communion within her multifaceted textual practice. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Rasheed’s work spans vast bodies of knowledge and temporalities to interrogate both the aesthetic and the limits of the text. At times producing collages with letters cut out from books in her own expansive library, and at other times posting scans from various books that are marked up with her rigorous note-taking, Rasheed approaches the text as an invitation to commune with the author in order to collectively arrive at new …

Surface Reading Paper As Feminist Bibliography, Georgina Wilson

Criticism

This article models a mode of feminist bibliography by “surface reading” paper. Taking Ben Jonson’s Sejanus His Fall (1605) as a case study, this article reads watermarks as reminders of paper’s three-dimensional materiality, whose surfaces and depths model the more and less legible forms of labor which contribute to paper’s making. Watermarks here become a creative and critical prompt to recover the interventions of John Spilman (the papermaker whose output was used for Sejanus), Spilman’s workers, and especially his female ragpickers. This article fuses close reading of literary texts and archival sources with bibliography and theory to demonstrate fresh …

Unearthing Complexity: Tangible Histories Of Water And Earth, Alexis Violet

Masters Theses

Unearthing Complexity investigates conceptions of time and surface through geological stories of the water and earth. Building on theories of deep time, hydrofeminism, critical zones, and grounding, I hope to foster a deeper awareness of time scales other than our own and a more tangible understanding of the embodied experience of matter in the universe. Working toward a new literacy of the water and earth in which they are recognized as living, changing bodies to which we are inherently tied at a molecular level, the site of this multiscalar inquiry occurs in the coastal zones of the Narragansett Bay where …

Lg Ms 079 Steven G. Bull Papers, Jill Piekut Roy, Jeremy Rundstrom

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Papers include correspondence, photographs, publications, and ephemera documenting the beginning of the gay liberation movement in Maine and Steve Bull's participation in the movement both in Maine and nationally, especially through his involvement with the founding of the Wilde-Stein Club at University of Maine Orono in 1973 and his chairmanship of the first Maine Gay Symposium in 1974. Letters received by Bull and his friends, both personally and as Wilde-Stein Club officials, are evidence of the attitudes of both supporters of gay liberation and its opponents in the 1970s. Bull's research papers document the University of Maine's reaction to …