Women's Studies Commons^™

A Review Of William Hayley: A Biographer’S Influence On Life Writing And Romantic Networks In The Long Eighteenth Century, Edited By Lisa Gee And Mark Crosby, Risako Nomura

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

A review of William Hayley: A Biographer’s Influence on Life Writing and Romantic Networks in the Long Eighteenth Century, edited by Lisa Gee and Mark Crosby by Risako Nomura

The Gendered Duality Of Coldness In The Portrayals Of Eliza Hayley, Francesca Blanch-Serrat

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

In the eighteenth century, coldness was defined, on the one hand, in relation to the body and the senses (a body that is lacking in heat) and on the other, to emotion (an individual lacking in passion). It was linked to illness and disability (Turner, 2012), equated to death, seen as both a cause and effect of physical decline and older age, and used as a synonym for low libido and infertility (Toulalan, 2015). In contrast to these negative connotations, coldness was also regarded as a remedy to temper the passions and to ensure longevity (Yallop, 2015), and taking cold …

Madness In The Mixtape: Gothic Literature And Pop Music, Nicholas Dertinger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In Gothic literature, madness has often been connected to the outliers of what is considered socially normal. This dissertation explores the enduring theme of madness, particularly the figure of the “madwoman,” in both women’s literature and in its “afterlife”—or continuing conversation with—contemporary pop music. Through a comparative analysis of songs including Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” (1978), Beyoncé’s “Hold Up” (2016), Lady Gaga’s “Plastic Doll” (2020), Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u” (2021), Billie Eilish’ “What Was I Made For?” (2023), Paramore’s cover of “Burning Down the House” (2024), Taylor Swift’s “mad woman” (2020) and Florence + the Machine’s “Dream Girl Evil” …

Helena María Viramontes’ Under The Feet Of Jesus And Sandra Cisneros’ The House On Mango Street: An Exploratory Analysis Of Female Friendship In The Chicana Feminist Bildungsroman, Patrice Donnelly

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This exploratory analysis examines female friendships presented in two mid-twentieth century Chicana feminist Bildungsroman, each between a Chicana protagonist and a female friend as foil. One friendship in Under the Feet of Jesus, by Helena María Viramontes, is interracial; the other, in The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is Chicana. Both friendships interrogate the boundaries within mainstream feminism, particularly its monolithic views and complicity with power. Each friendship offers a Chicana feminist perspective centering family and cultural community. The theoretical foundation includes classical and contemporary understandings of Bildungsroman as literary form, Toni Morrison’s American Africanism, …

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 …

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.

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, …

If Your Muses Don't Hate You..., Hannah Howe

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

If Your Muses Don’t Hate You… interrogates a speaker who feels she lacks the tools needed to properly assess trauma and grief. This collection follows the speaker as she delves into obsessive analysis of self, often using metaphysical lenses as methods of comprehension. Each section explores a facet of the subject’s identity, and examines whether her heartache is self-inflicted, preordained, or both. Six of the seven sections provide the reader with imaginative interpretations of the speaker’s natal chart, allowing the reader the opportunity to analyze alongside the speaker. The first half of these sections present the speaker struggling to separate …

The Making Of Jewish-American Progress In Gertrude Stein’S, The Making Of Americans: Being A History Of A Family’S Progress, Rochel L. Gasson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation provides a comprehensive reading of Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans (TMOA), situating the novel at the intersection of literary modernism, Jewish American identity, and feminist thought. It argues that Stein reconceives American progress not as linear advancement but as a recursive, relational, and culturally grounded process. Through experimental form, repetitive syntax, and a sustained present tense, TMOA dramatizes the psychological and social complexities of immigrant families navigating assimilation while maintaining heritage. Characters such as the Old Man, his son, and the Dehning and Herland families reveal generational tensions, moral labor, and the ambivalences of upward …

Domination, Limitation, And Liberation In Gilman's Herland, Ella Cauley

Student Scholar Symposium

No abstract provided.

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2025 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Tracy Smith, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

"The Yellow Wall-Paper": Decoding Medical Patriarchal Structures (A Common Theme Within Gothic Literature/Horror), Yvonne T. Samuels

Masters Theses (Archived)

This paper makes the claim that Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wall-Paper” encoded the medical system as part of the patriarchy used to control and harm women, especially within the 19^th Century, and how this is a common theme within gothic literature and modern-day horror. Through the Feminist Literary Criticism framework and the methodology of textual analysis, certain literary devices Gilman uses, including the Gothic trope of the narrator’s environment in “The Yellow Wall-Paper” is analyzed to reveal women living in a patriarchal society during the 19^thCentury and the medical system being a source of power. “The …

The Heroine's Journey: Together We Rise A Comparative Analysis Of The Forgotten Beasts Of Eld And When Women Were Dragons, Kirsten Mann

English

This thesis examines isolation, solitude, and the search for community in The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974) by Patricia A. McKillip and When Women Were Dragons (2022) by Kelly Barnhill through the lens of Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey (1990). While Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) has long shaped critical understandings of narrative transformation, its masculine focus leaves the solitary heroine’s experience underexplored. Murdock’s framework reframes the journey as one of healing the split between the masculine and feminine within both the individual and the culture.

Sybel and Alex, the heroines of these two novels, begin in …

From Sensibility To Critical Engagement: Sympathy, Animality, And Subjecthood In Wollstonecraft’S Maria And Vindication, Yingnan Shang

Comparative Woman

This paper examines Mary Wollstonecraft’s strategic use of sentimental animal tropes alongside rationalist critique in Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman (1798) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), arguing that she mobilizes sensibility not as an end in itself, but as a pedagogical instrument within a broader project of aesthetic education—one intended to move readers from affective sympathy toward political and philosophical judgment. Focusing in particular on animal metaphors—especially in the character of Jemima, who repeatedly figures herself as a domesticated and brutalized creature—I trace how Wollstonecraft employs tropes of animality to illuminate the processes by which …

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 …

Reading Romance As An Act Of Resistance, Amy K. Krug

English Faculty Publications

A podcast discussion about how popular romance represents many different populations, including people of color, people with disabilities, and people who are LGBTQ+. Reading these romances with diverse characters can be a powerful mode of resistance against current anti-diversity efforts becoming more prevalent in society.

Listen to the episode. The transcript is available for download.

Jute Mill Songs: Mary Brooksbank And Industrial Tradition In A Dying Industry, Erin Farley

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article outlines some key elements of Dundee’s industrial literary tradition, primarily associated with the city’s jute industry, as expressed in the songs and poems of Mary Brooksbank (1897-1978). It also explores ways in which writers working from the 1980s onwards have used the memory of the jute industry, Brooksbank herself, and associated verse traditions to imagine place and work in post-industrial Dundee.

‘And On One Toils, Into The Hill’: Working And Walking In Nan Shepherd’S North East, Sarah Leith

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article considers the duality of working and walking in Nan Shepherd’s writings about the North East of Scotland. Exploring Shepherd’s works from the perspectives of social and intellectual history, it considers the ways in which she represented both working and walking as labour during the first half of Scotland’s twentieth century.

Love Amid The Rage: Feminist Affect In Women's Life-Writing, Genesis Siverio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The aim of this thesis is to show the ways women’s emotions or affect, particularly rage and love, are described by women writers in their most intimate stories. I discuss the way emotion has been demeaned, and how feminist scholars have instead viewed the body as a place of insight, reclaiming a knowledge from the senses. In the midst of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy, women give voice to their affectual experiences and cultivate the feelings they have so often been denied. Focusing on the particular ways women’s anger manifests in their lives and in their bodies, I zoom in on …

“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 …

On The Sisterhood: How A Network Of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture, Danica Savonick

Criticism

The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture by Courtney Thorsson. Columbia University Press, 2023. Pp. 296. $28.95 hardback, $19.00 paperback.