Queer Studies Commons^™

Who Tells Our Stories?: An Analysis Of Lgbtqia2s+ Community-Museum Collaboration In Northeastern Wisconsin, Frances Kerkhof

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, histories of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals have been excluded from mainstream conversations and censored from public records. This exclusion was evident in how LGBTQIA2S+ history is retold in museum spaces. Over the past few decades, public institutions have shifted how LGBTQIA2S+ histories are communicated, with efforts to include more diverse histories and perspectives. During the summer of 2025, I conducted a museum ethnography of the Neville Public Museum’s Telling Our Stories: LGBTQ+ Voices of Northeastern Wisconsin to answer the research question: How does community engagement enhance the representation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in a local museum in Northeastern Wisconsin? Through this …

Defying Impossibility: Critical Qualitative Reorientations To Black Lgbtqia+ Sense Of Belonging, Olivia H. Hunte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belonging is a human need central to survival and can be cultivated within all spheres of life. Social environments are vital for experiencing a sense of belonging. In some social environments, Black LGBTQIA+ people encounter greater impediments to their daily lives with consequences for survival, including threatening their belonging needs. Within the United States, systems of oppression create and inform conditions within social environments that can potentially thwart pathways to belonging for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Thus, fulfillment of belonging needs for Black LGBTQIA+ people is one of nuance, pain, resilience, hope, harm, trauma, resistance, and healing; scant research is available …

The Good Knight, Elektra Koozer

University Honors Theses

The Good Knight is a comics adaptation of Sir Galahad's story through the lens of a queer retelling. This story focuses on queer relationships, struggling with depression and isolation, and death. It begins at the end of Galahad's life, where he is forced to question his legacy and who he is after completing the quest that has dictated his whole life. The story weaves through time, reflecting upon his past, thinking about his mother's expectations of him, being chosen for the grail quest, confronting his estranged father, and trying to cope with the world on his shoulders. He has to …

Quiet Hills, Restless Hearts: An Intersectional Exploration Of Lgbtq+ Religious Journeys In Appalachia, Allison S. Monroe, Stacey L. Williams

McNair Culminating Research Projects

Many researchers have utilized Meyer’s (2003) minority stress model to examine the social factors influencing the daily lives of LGBTQ+ individuals. Previous research has looked at negative mental health outcomes for LGBTQ+ individuals (McGraw et al., 2023), the presence of religious stress for this community (Page et al., 2013), and religious journeys of these individuals (Halkitis et al, 2009).  However, few studies have examined the intersection of religion, LGBTQ+ identity, social support, and the overarching values of Appalachian culture. The proposed study seeks to add to the literature and understand the breadth of these experiences by employing qualitative semi-structured interviews. …

Vestigial Choreographies: Climate Consciousness In The Long Nineteenth Century, Alexandra A. Rego

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aims of this project are twofold: (a) to develop a method of theoretical analysis and (b) to put this method into pointed use. In service of (a), I propose a method of choreographic analysis. This method operates relationally, highlighting the production of movement and stillness among and between bodies, objects, and encounters. Choreographic analysis draws from methods typically sequestered to dance studies. Towards aim (b), this project demonstrates the relevance and breadth of choreographic analysis by connecting it to ecocriticism. Throughout this project, I apply choreographic analysis to a diverse set of case studies. I use choreographic analysis to …

Kitchen Table Press: A Case Study Of Regression To The Neoliberal Mean, Alaina Disalvo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the idealistic founding of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press in 1980 and its slow downfall, culminating in the cession of ownership of the Press to a university in 1992. It traces the ideological development of Kitchen Table Press’s key founders, Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde, and their respective relationships to the ideologies of other renowned feminist figures of the era, specifically June Jordan and Adrienne Rich. It examines the history of the Press through historical, intersectional, affective, and socialist lenses. This thesis argues that neoliberal pressures can bend even the most radical organizations away from their …

Trans-Cyber Cinema: Digital Embodiment In Science-Fiction Films, Sophia R. Schrock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to define the trans-cyber genre within cinema. By looking retroactively at a selection of nine films made across various decades and countries, this genre connects these films through their visualization and thematization of both trans and cyber embodiments, whereby the trans-cyber being emerges. Before the cinematic analysis and explanation of the three generic conventions selected for this thesis – transformation of body/gender; altered reality, memory, and temporality; and, radical death – the two intertwining theoretical frameworks will be established. This includes a brief summary of applicable transgender theory, and an introduction to cyborg theory (using Donna Haraway’s …

Monsters In The Gutter: Queerness And Family In Graphic Novels, Maren Beriss

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis I read two graphic novels together: My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris and Black Hole by Charles Burns. Although the stories are quite different, they mirror each other quite closely: Burns’ story takes place in a homogenous suburb; Ferris’ is set in a diverse part of Chicago. Both deal with what it means to be a monster, but in different ways. Ferris has a clear framework of the different kinds of monsters – good, bad, and villager – which is at times helpful but often too narrow. Yet reading Burns with this lens in mind …

Erosion And Accretion: Mobilities Of Sand, People, And Memory At Queer Riis Beach, Jah Elyse Sayers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park on the Rockaway Peninsula of Queens, New York, is a vibrant place of queer and trans public-space placemaking—and especially Black and working class queer and trans placemaking. A distinct queer ecology emerges in the interplay of the dynamic movement of the barrier island, queer and trans—especially queer and trans Afro-diasporic—mobilities. This queer ecology, while articulated with, also defies and exceeds logics and workings of private property. In response to a convergence of pressures on Black, queer, trans, and working-class placemaking on the beach site in the 2020s, beachgoers have mobilized longstanding provisional socialities …

Kanak-Ish Misfits: Queer Imaginaries, Racialized Borders, And The Politics Of Care In Berlin, Germany, Faruk Seref

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines queer Muslim experiences of border politics, racialization, and care in Berlin, Germany. By formulating bordering as a domineering and oppressive practice of boundary-making, I study how global bordering mechanisms shape and disrupt structures of care, caring, and being cared for. With an intersectional focus on race, gender, sexuality, and sex, I argue that borders are simultaneously materialized and challenged in varying localities, including the nightclub, the queer scene, the diasporic neighborhoods, and households. Ultimately, viewing collective care as fundamental to survival, healing, resistance, and building non-punitive lifeworlds, I theorize the counter-hegemonic practices of queers of color through …

A Twilight World Of Unspeakable Horror: Lesbian Camp And The Vampire Lovers (1970), Mirielle Lemay

University Honors Theses

From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, a wave of lesbian vampire themed exploitation films proliferated through UK, US, and Western European cinemas. In critical literature on this subgenre, camp reading is often dismissed, unacknowledged, or understood as circumscribed by authorial intent and/or intended audience. With this alternating lack of attention to and dismissal of camp, the interpretive agency of the queer spectator is constrained, their spectatorship implicitly subordinated to that of the "conventional" horror audience—the voyeuristic-sadistic male spectator. Through a reading of The Vampire Lovers, a 1970 British production from Hammer Studios, I seek to explore how …

Petals And Pride: A Botanical History Of Queer Expression, Sarah O. Kowal

Graduate Masters Theses

“Petals and Pride” examines the historical use of flowers as enduring symbols of queer expression and persecution across diverse cultures and time periods, paying particular attention to violets, green carnations, roses, lilies, pansies, and lavender. This study begins with the appearance of violets in the works of the Ancient Greek poet Sappho and traces their adoption by the lesbian community of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Around this same time, another floral symbol emerged across the English Channel: the green carnation. Popularized by Oscar Wilde, the green carnation functioned in Victorian Britain as an emblem of sexuality …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Fetishismus:Facism, Sodomy, And The Exhibition, Matthew P. Gershovich

Masters Theses

Fetishismus examines the contemporary dislocation between homosexuality and queerness. Homosexuality is the biological, innate quality of same-sex attraction. Queerness is rooted in deviance, perversion, and sociologically attached to the “other.” Although almost always used in an explicitly homosexual connotation, “queerness” is not entirely contingent on the physical engagement of homosexual acts. In historical usage, queer is used as a pejorative adjective, implying a lack of masculinity with the intent to invoke repulsion. In contemporary parlance the two are treated as synonymous. This intertwined relationship relies on the forced lack of social and spatial belonging that is rooted in a foundational …

Embodied Leadership And Conditional Legitimacy: Critically Conscious Male Leaders Navigating Systems Of Power, Luis A. Legaspi

Dissertations

Leadership is not a neutral concept; it is shaped by overlapping systems of power, including empire, whiteness, neoliberal capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy. These interlocking systems influence how leadership is defined, recognized, and legitimized, often privileging particular identities and forms of authority. The persistent underrepresentation of people of color, women, and queer individuals in positions of leadership reflects how dominant conceptions of leadership remain closely aligned with historically entrenched structures of power.

This critical narrative inquiry study examines how men, who disproportionately occupy positions of social and institutional authority, make meaning of masculinity, power, and leadership within these systems. Drawing on relational …

Archives Of The Future, Ka Oskar Ly

Masters Theses

Archives Of The Future is a practice-based thesis that invokes the archive and the future as simultaneous.

This research insists on the recentering of HMong Indigeneity and its own rooted traditions of HMong Queerness and HMong Feminism as ancestral knowledge systems.

They are the medicine. To recover their cosmological capacity is to traverse centuries of systematic eradication by empires and patriarchy.

I treat artistic making, community encounter, memory, and materials as equally valid ways of knowing and as collaborators. Field research from 2020 to 2026 moves through kinship and artisan teachings. It spans Southeast Asia, France, the United States, and …

Thomas Mann’S Unbound Bodies: A Formal Analysis Of Disease In The Magic Mountain, Julia Shi

Student Theses and Dissertations

My senior thesis argues that disease is a formal element in Thomas Mann’s novel, The Magic Mountain, through the lens of a newly theorized genre: the “Bindungsroman” (“binding-novel”). The scholar Jonas Rosenbrück proposed the Bindungsroman as the successor genre to the Bildungsroman after the latter fell out of public favor after World War I.  Whereas the Bildungsroman narrates its hero’s maturation as a process of integration into society, the Bindungsroman’s hero is ontologically unstable and does not achieve normative resolution. This paper examines The Magic Mountain’s protagonist’s development as defined by the doubled play of binding and …

Art In An Apocalypse: Aids, Activism, And Abolition In Work Of Essex Hemphill And Alternative Video Production, Sydney E. Guntharp

Honors Theses

This thesis is an exploration of Black, POC, feminist, and queer art in the late twentieth century, examining both the AIDS crisis and the increasing privatization of the prison industrial complex as key factors in the development of Essex Hemphill’s poetic, expressive works and the filmmaking activism of various videotape collectives. Through employing the lens of critical prison studies, this work seeks to understand how Black and POC art emerged as a site of political resistance to a carceral state as well as the broader social punishment doctrine that influenced the public health response to AIDS in the United States. …

"I Exist In Triple": Parisian Influence, And The Three-Way Split In James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room (1956), Paloma Lupino

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

James Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room was received as a rebellion against his cohort of ex-patriate Black writers due to its entirely white cast. This thesis investigates how the Parisian influence of the Black writers in Paris served as inspiration for the creation of Baldwin’s second publication. The use of racial frameworks progresses the discussion of a different topic: queerness. Giovanni’s Room will be explored in the following ways: Paris as the internal environment of the novel and Baldwin's backdrop in the novel's creation, the conversation of ex-patriate Black writers, feminism, intersectionality, hygiene as queerness, and a three-way split of consciousness. …

Navigating Faith And Sexuality: Christian Pastors' Experiences In Providing Pastoral Care For Lgbtq+ Youth, Keith I. Raymond

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Within the Christian context, religion and sexuality are often cultural factors that shape the identity development of LGBTQ+ youth, with congregational stance (affirming, tolerant, non–affirming) and individual religiosity/spirituality serving as protective or risk factors (Crockett et al., 2018; Raedel et al., 2020; Yarhouse & Sadusky, 2021). Christian pastors’ theology, relational ministry approach, and pastoral skills influence how they engage with and care for queer youth, yet the professional ties between pastors and LGBTQ+ youth remain underrepresented in counseling literature. Guided by queer theory, this qualitative case study examined how Christian pastors understand and navigate pastoral care for LGBTQ+ youth within …

Intimate Partner Violence In The Queer Community, Kathleen A. Oslé

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Queer college students face unique barriers to receiving intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention services, of note the instability of emerging adult life. At question is whether or not targeted intervention services appropriately serve the queer community in this regard. A new digital media landscape for the romantic world creates potentially harmful life goals by glorifying unhealthy behaviors and ostracizing survivors, all for the sake of money. Previous research shows that early intervention and education provides a preventative factor in IPV. Data from an in-person intervention workshop is used to determine the feasibility of targeted intervention services, and provides means-tested results. …

Pussy Protest! Protest Zines To Uplift Marginalized Voices, Alekz Nelson

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

A publication of 4 separate zines made up of 12 pages each. The zines delve into the history of the Americans with Disabilities Act, trans women and their music artistry, lack of lesbian media, and inmate working conditions. These zines aim to not only raise awareness towards these issues, but spark action from readers by providing practical and doable options to pursue. With societal attitudes and political administrations becoming more conservative, spreading this information and awareness is vital to ensure that these alternatives ways of life are not forcibly erased.

Living Doll: Puppetry, Performance, And The Art Of Greer Lankton, Madison Lee

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that puppetry is the animating logic of Greer Lankton's practice. Drawing on archival evidence—including letters, planners, and drawings—it recovers an engagement with puppetry spanning childhood through her final years, and applies puppet theory to argue that Lankton understood selfhood as something made, not given.

Bugs, Birds, Blue: Queer Ecologies Of Embodiment, Kinship, And Survival, Celeste B. Newcomb

Theses and Dissertations

bugs, birds, blue is a multi-channel audiovisual installation that examines queer ecology as a framework for understanding transgender embodiment, kinship, and survival amid environmental crisis and ongoing political attacks on trans life (Mortimer-Sandilands and Erickson). Through sculpture, projection, sound, reflective surfaces, and biological imagery, the installation places human bodily matter alongside microbial and aquatic life forms to challenge narratives that frame trans existence as unnatural, recent, or isolated. Instead, the work proposes transness as relational, adaptive, and deeply entangled with broader ecological systems. The installation is composed of two interconnected environments. On one side of the space, three aquariums rest …

Do Clothes Make The Man? Ftm Crossdressing In The 18th-19th C. Anglo-American World, Aidrian Graber

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to analyze the legacy of "Female Husbands" and other female-to-male crossdressers in the 18/19th c. Anglo-American world and how such people can illuminate the field of transgender history.

Girlhood, Interrupted: An Intersectional Feminist History Of Decolonizing And Reclaiming Womanhood, Ayden Kelly

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In the past few decades, social and political discourse surrounding womanhood and who is considered a "real" woman has led to the execration of transgender women. This work will explore how recent discourse and rhetoric surrounding who is and who is not a “real woman” can be traced to nineteenth century notions of “true womanhood” that excluded women of color. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with westward expansion, settler colonialism, residential schools, slavery, and post-emancipation serving as backdrops, this work will also analyze how ideologies of womanhood have interrupted and suppressed women of color throughout Western American …

Harriet Hosmer: Femininity And Stone, Savannah V. Parrish

Undergraduate Theses

Harriet Hosmer was an American woman sculptor who studied in Rome, Italy, from 1853 to 1900. Hosmer led her own cohort of women artists and inspired other artists in Rome. Hosmer’s sculptures and the controversies surrounding them exemplify her experiences as a career woman of her time. Hosmer made sculptures of women who defied the will of men, both mythical and historical. Hosmer’s sculptures show how she felt restricted in the world, particularly in the field of sculpture as a woman and how like the figures of her sculptures she found freedom in stone, where she could tell the stories …

Out In The Arena: Examining The Lgbtq+ Experience In Ihsa, Katharine C. Didier

Honors College Theses

This study investigated factors influencing Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) LGBTQ+ riders’ perceptions of inclusion, safety, and belonging, with the hypothesis that teams with diversity and inclusion policies would be perceived as more accepting. An online survey was developed to gather information from self-identified LGBTQ+ IHSA students. Questions covered demographics, team environment, and perceived inclusivity within their equestrian programs. Question types included multiple choice, Likert-type, short answer, and open-ended. IHSA coaches were asked to share the survey link with team members. Students were able to respond anonymously. The survey was open for 8 weeks. Reminders were sent out at 3 …

Dark Wave - Comics And Transgender Studies In Practice, Mieke Vanderveen

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

This is a thesis in two parts. Its goal is to provoke the intersection of superhero comics and transgender studies in order to interrogate the parallels between those two identities and explore ways in which pairing them together can strengthen each other narratively and academically. Rather than seeking an answer to a question, the project as a whole serves as a way of communicating trans internalities from a transfeminine perspective in a format that brings the issues to the forefront of the narrative in an in-depth and entertaining way. The result is hopefully a coherent artistic work that achieves those …

Writing From The Rift: Queer Temporality And The Refusal Of Resolution, Daniela Ruiz Perez

Masters Theses

This thesis develops a phenomenological method for reading speculative literature as a site where queer ecological temporality is experienced rather than explained. Working with Annihilation (2014) by Jeff VanderMeer, The Day of the Triffids (1951) by John Wyndham, and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (2020) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, the project treats reading as a bodily practice shaped by forms of attention. Texts are not interpreted for stable meaning and instead I remain with moments where resolution is withheld. The work is informed by a Marxist attention to how capitalist time organizes labor, productivity, and value, and how …