History Commons^™

Jane Anger Her Protection For Women And The Emergence Of A Radical Female Voice In Late Sixteenth Century England, Ashley M. Wessel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how women authors responded to masculine discourses of dominance in late sixteenth-century England. Directly, it concentrates on the pamphlet Jane Anger her Protection for Women, written in 1589 and published under the pseudonym Jane Anger. I argue Anger’s pamphlet was a radical voice within Elizabethan print culture which lends a view into gender politics of the time in which this piece was produced. I also argue that though Anger’s target audience was the gentlewomen of England, she crafted her pamphlet for a broad audience that included any literate man or woman across social station. The importance …

An Analysis Of The Role Of Gender In Political News Media Coverage, Clare Atkinson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although there has been a decrease in specific exclusionary rules in governments around the world, most nations are very far from a governing body which represents the diversity that exists within their borders. There are many issues which may dissuade previously marginalized populations from political participation. One of these problems when it comes to female participation, is differential political news coverage. This study looked at how media sources set the political agenda and frame news stories in terms of the gender of a politician, and how this can create an additional challenge for women in government. The investigation found that …

The Pursuit Of Holiness In Early Modern Southern Italy, Mary Andino

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My research explores lay understandings of holiness and sanctity in Palermo and Naples in the period 1563-1734, with particular attention to the entanglements of religion, gender, and culture. To get at contested notions of holiness, I study putative saints, persons who in their lifetimes gained a reputation for holiness but were never formally canonized. I include both false saints (persons tried by the Inquisition for pretending to be saints) and stalled saints (those for whom a canonization process was opened but never concluded). I show how sanctity engaged local communities as well as the Church hierarchy and bring to light …

The Political, The Personal, And The Personified: 18th Century British Political Caricature Art And The Formation Of The British Empire’S Identity, Sarah Johns

History Honors Papers

An image is often capable of communicating a number of things to a viewer, and political caricature in the eighteenth-century British metropole is one clear example of this. Political caricature became a useful tool for the wealthy—especially white men—to engage in discussions about the power of the British Empire as it continued to expand and grow in strength in comparison to other European Empires at the time. Even so, with the coming of the American conflict, things changed. No longer could these men be sure of what a British identity entailed. A family fractured, changing gender norms, evolving concepts of …

Women’S Advocate Or Racist Hypocrite: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink And The Contradictions Of Women In Nazi Ideology, Mary C. S. Frasier

Student Publications

The Reichsfrauenführerin, Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, led the National Socialist Women’s League from 1934 until she went into hiding in 1945. During her career in the Nazi Party, she created a female focused sector of the party that promoted pronatalist propaganda, discouraged women from engaging in politics, and urged women to only perform gender-suitable work. In contradiction to her message, Scholtz-Klink was the highest-ranking female political figure and a divorcee, who regularly chose her political career with the Nazi Party over her duties in the private sphere. Although she had little to no political power in the inner circle because of her …

Making The Violin Fashionable: Gender And Virtuosity In The Life Of Camilla Urso, Maeve Nagel-Frazel, Petra Meyer Frazier, Antonia Banducci

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

In the late nineteenth century, the violinist Camilla Urso (1840-1902) was widely recognized as the preeminent female violinist in the United States. As a nationally famous celebrity, Urso became a pedagogue and role model to subsequent generations of female violinists. Both the wide-ranging geographic spread of Urso’s career and her direct advocacy for women violinists played a pivotal role in changing cultural ideals of violin performance from a militant and masculine bravura tradition into a fashionable pursuit for young women. A classmate of HenrykWieniawski (1835-1880) and a concert rival of the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull (1810-1880), Urso’s career rested on …

Oral Interview: Contextualizing The Women's Rights Movement In Tunisia Through Family History, Walid Zarrad

Papers, Posters, and Presentations

In their path towards emancipation and equal rights, Tunisian women have gone through a number of phases that seem to be directly linked to legal changes and cultural factors. In fact, the Code of Personal Status (CPS) of 1956 seems to be a milestone in the women’s movement, and its following amendments continued on this path. However, it is a lot more complex than that. A piece of legislation officially passing is not a simple determinant of the state of Women’s Rights in a country.

Through Dorra Mahfoudh Draoui’s “Report on Gender and Marriage in Tunisian Society” and my interview …

"Our Women Are Made Of The Right Stuff": Gender, Politics, And Conflict In Civil War West Virginia, Amanda Romain Shaver

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

“’Our Women Are Made of the Right Stuff:’ Gender, Politics, and Conflict in Civil War West Virginia” examines the lives and contributions of white West Virginia women and argues that they were not merely victims of the war, but dynamic participants whose opinions were influential and whose actions determined the ability of both the Union and Confederate armies to wage war in Appalachia. Striking a balance between the antebellum standards of “True Womanhood” and the emerging ideals of the women’s rights movement, West Virginia women became politically engaged in both the statehood movement and the Civil War. They transformed their …

The Space Between “Seen” And “Unseen:” Queer People And The 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance, Claudia R. Campanella

Dissertations and Theses

In November 1926, a group of Black artists, writers, and activists created the first and only edition of Fire!!, edited by novelist Wallace Thurman. Fire!! was created by a younger generation of New Negroes and “devoted to the younger Negro artists” who dissented from the mainstream ideas of the New Negro Movement and used the magazine to spread their own views on the 1915-1945 New Negro Renaissance. Fire!! and other texts speaking to this dissent against a Black intellectual middle class image of the movement will be studied in reference to showcasing the multi-faceted elements of the movement touching …

A Queer(Er) Genocide Studies, Lily Nellans

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper examines how queerness interacts with and is implicated in traditional genocides, i.e. those directed at racial, religious, national, and ethnic groups - the groups defined as protected classes in the Genocide Convention. It poses the following question: How can scholars of Genocide Studies learn from the queer theory-Genocide Studies nexus? To answer, this paper demonstrate how three distinct queer theory concepts can be woven with Genocide Studies to reveal novel insights into some of the field’s preeminent questions. Specifically, it draws on queer intellectual curiosity, heteronormativity, and reproductive futurism. Connecting queer theory with Genocide Studies yields empirical, analytical, …

Whose Sword? Materiality, Gender Subversion And The Fairy Women Of Middle English Romance, Jane Bonsall

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Though frequently steeped in elements of fantasy and featuring idealised or supernatural characters, Middle English romances are, at their core, concerned with the practicalities of material wealth and status among the gentry and aristocracy. This persistent concern with wealth and materiality is manifested in dramatic ways in some of the Middle English romances figuring magical women. In Melusine, Sir Launfal, and Partonope of Blois, the control of masculine-gendered objects of material wealth – and signifiers of chivalric identity – is given to the fairy ladies, rather than their knightly paramours. In their manipulation and control of these material symbols of …

Posters, Handkerchiefs And Murals: Visual Gender Separation During The Troubles, Bradley Rohlf

Irish Communication Review

The Troubles in Northern Ireland provide a complex and intriguing topic for many scholars in various academic disciplines. Their violence, publicity and tragedy are common themes that elicit a plethora of emotional responses throughout the world. However, the very intimate nature of this conflict creates a much more complex system of friends, foes and experiences for those involved. While the very heart of the Irish nationalist movement is founded on liberal and progressive concepts such as socialism and equality, the media associated with it sometimes promote tradition and conservatism, especially regarding gender. This critical study examines a sociopolitical struggle through …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

An Analysis Of Women And Terrorism: Perpetrators, Victims, Both?, Elizabeth Lauren Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper will analyze women’s participation in terrorism under groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. It will research the use of violence within terrorist organizations, perpetrated by female participants. What leads women to join groups like the Islamic State? There will be an analysis of the factors that attract women to joining terrorist organizations, in addition to the practices of recruitment that aid in their radicalization. There is a misconception that women who join the Islamic State lack education, which is seen as the sole reasoning for their radicalization or involvement. In reality, several reasons exist leading to their …

Talking Back: Sodomy Laws And Transgressive Subjectivity In Medieval Venice, Alex Baldassano

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Urban Italian law, by the fifteenth-century, would become particularly aggressive in comparison to the rest of Europe not only in prosecuting sodomy, but also in implementing the threatened capital punishment. The 1354 Venetian court case of Rolandinus/a Ronchaia, in the century leading up to the officialization of the law, both exemplifies this trend and yet also stands out as unique because of the subject’s gender presentation; the case seeks to resolve whether or not this person, perceived either as ambiguously gendered or as a man dressed as a woman, can be convicted of committing sodomy or prostitution. Ronchaia, however, is …

Female Political Campaigns: Just The Right Amount Of Femininity, Harley Rogers

Honors College

This paper seeks to understand how female politicians develop their public identities to meet and reject the gender stereotypes society holds of women. The case study looks at Margaret Chase Smith’s political career, with a special focus on her 1964 presidential campaign. The research analyzed Smith’s career through the newspaper coverage of her in order to understand Smith’s choices surrounding her public identity and the media’s response. The analysis identified four distinct points of interest that contributed to Smith’s public persona: physical appearance, examples of housewifery, dialogue on women’s issues, and legislative accomplishments. These factors demonstrate how Smith presented her …

Serving With Pride: Military Experience And The Formation Of The Queer Female Identity In Mid-Century America, Kathlene Ward, Elizabeth Escobedo, Susan Schulten

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

At the inception of World War II, the United States military adapted to include women within its ranks with the creation of the Women’s Army Corps. Likewise, psychology’s implementation into military procedures legitimized systematic exclusion and removal of queer persons seeking military involvement. Such factors resulted in a particularly unique environment for queer servicewomen. The birth of the Cold War brought about a new wave of heterosexual expectations that forced queer individuals in the U.S. military even further into the closet. This project seeks to uncover how gender and sexuality expectations placed upon queer women serving in the World War …

The Fatale Monstrum And The Nasty Woman: Public Portrayals Of Cleopatra Vii And Hillary Rodham Clinton, Emma Baker

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Women Living History: An Exploration Of Transformational Learning In A Living History Group, Amanda Silva, Joseph Polizzi

Education Faculty Publications

Although transformational learning has been studied in numerous contexts (English and Peters, 2012; Foote, 2015; Mezirow, 1990; Mezirow, 1997; Nohl, 2015), one area worth further exploration is the activity of living history. Living history, as defined by Anderson (1982), is essentially the simulation of life in another time. The present study focuses on a group of women in a small living history organization and how their participation in this group has changed them. Participant observation and interviews were used to determine what the women gain from their participation and to uncover some of the reasons they continue with the group. …

Female Cartographers: Historical Obstacles And Successes, Eva Llamas-Owens

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

For much of history, women have lived in male-dominated societies, which has limited their participation in society. The field of cartography has been largely populated by men, but despite cultural obstacles, there are records of women significantly contributing over the past 1,000 years. Historically, women have faced coverture, stereotypes, lack of opportunities, and lack of recognition for their accomplishments. Their involvement in cartography is often a result of education or valuable experiences, availability of resources, a supportive community or mentor, hard work, and luck regardless of when and where they lived.

This research divides women before and after the turn …

Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft, Sebastiane, Samantha Round, Kaitlynn Werner

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sebastiane Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft is a non-binary lesbian, who uses they/them/theirs pronouns. They’re currently working on their Graduate degree in Psychology at the University of Southern Maine, as well as working at CIEE Maine, launching a podcast about mental health with their wife, and they are acting Chair of Pride Portland! During the interview, religion, mental health, activism, and family dynamics are discussed, as Sebastiane explains their life in Maine after living in many different places across the globe.

Citation

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson …

Law School News: Rwu Law Will Dedicate Classroom To Ri's First African-American Woman Lawyer 9-4-2019, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

In Her Own Hands: How Girls And Women Used The Piano To Chart Their Futures, Expand Women's Roles, And Shape Music In America, 1880–1920, Sarah F. Litvin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

American girls and women used the parlor piano to reshape their lives between 1880 and 1920, the years when the instrument reached the height of its commercial and cultural popularity. Newspapers, memoirs, biographies, women’s magazines, personal papers, and trade publications show that female pianists engaged in public-facing piano play and work in pursuit of artistic expression, economic gain, self-actualization, social mobility, and social change. These motivations drove many to use their piano skills to play beyond the parlor, by studying in conservatory, working as classical and popular music performers and composers, founding and teaching at schools, working as department store …

Undying (And Undead) Modern National Myths: Cannibalism And Racial Mixture In Contemporary Brazilian Vampire Fiction, Jacob C. Brown

Alambique. Revista académica de ciencia ficción y fantasía / Jornal acadêmico de ficção científica e fantasía

Contemporary cultural media illustrates the vampire as an important symbolic figure in the Brazilian imaginary. For example, in twentieth and twenty-first century Brazilian fiction, television, and political discourse, vampires have risen from their supposedly European origins as expressions of urban decay, comic excess, and government corruption in Brazil. Beyond these representations, I focus on three contemporary novels in which the vampire also plays a starring role. O vampiro que descobriu o Brasil (1999) by Ivan Jaf, Aventuras do vampiro de Palmares (2014) by Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro, and Dom Pedro I Vampiro (2015) by Nazarethe Fonseca stand out from other creative reimaginings …

The Notions Of The "Closet" And The "Secret" In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Jessica Maria Oliveira

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the notions of the “closet” and “secret” within Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as offer a clear and precise definition of queer theory to assist in elucidating many of the concepts being discussed. Close reading techniques will be utilized to further uncover the metaphoric, symbolic, and otherwise figurative importance of certain aspects of The Picture of Dorian Gray and supporting texts. Through Judith Butler’s conceptualization of sex and gender, as well as Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the “secret”, this paper will explicate the intricacies of Wilde’s work and unveil queered aspects …

Final Master's Portfolio, Heather M. Stephenson

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This collection examines hegemonic responses to shifting gender norms in a series of Anglo-American novels and films in the late 19th century through the late 20th century. Beginning in the Victorian era before progressing to the 1950s, 1960s, and the 1970s—with gestures to the Jacobean era and the contemporary period—each piece in this collection examines one or more text(s) as a vignette demonstrative of changing gender issues within their context. By situating each text within its historical and cultural milieu, this collection examines efforts, in different instances, to reassert long-standing gender norms throughout the ages. Not only does the collection …

Indigenous Masculinities And The Tarascan Borderlands In Sixteenth-Century Michoacán, Daniel Santana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation studies the hypermasculine narratives related to the expansion of the Tarascan state and its borderlands in early colonial Michoacán. Colonial texts such as the Relación de Michoacán and the relaciones geográficas depict the ascendance of the powerful Uacúsecha dynasty whose solar deity and male rulers oversaw the conquest of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin and succeeded in holding back the Mexica (Aztecs) from penetrating their territories. The Dissertation pays particular attention to how contemporary political events, namely the Spanish conquest of Michoacán, endemic warfare in center-west Mexico, and political rivalries amongst Indigenous elites, influenced these accounts. Consequently, these narratives …

"The More They’Re Beaten The Better They Be": Gendered Violence And Abuse In Victorian Laws And Literature, Danielle T. Dominguez

CMC Senior Theses

During the Victorian age, the law and society were in conversation with each other, and the law reflected Victorian gender norms. Nineteenth-century gender attitudes intersected with the law, medical discourse, and social customs in a multitude of ways. Abuse and gender violence occurred beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability. The models of nineteenth-century social conduct were highly gendered and placed men and women in separate social spheres. As this research indicates, the lived practices of Victorians, across social and economic strata, deviated from these accepted models of behavior. This thesis explores the ways that accepted and unaccepted standards of female …

Creating Herstory: Female Rebellion In Arundhati Roy’S "The God Of Small Things" And "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness", Priyanka Tewari

Theses and Dissertations

In The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness novels, the author Arundhati Roy is not only attempting to give feminist weight to the multiplicity of locations in which gender is articulated by recasting her female characters in their quest for selfhood, she is also focusing on women and women-identified characters as agents of history, thereby contributing to an ongoing project of feminist historiography.

Boys, Balls, And The Blues: The Erasure Of Genderqueer Bodies, Austin Mcgrath

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

The goal of this essay is to re-explore the concept of gender in its relation to genderqueer and nonbinary identities. Before its examination of the gender reveal party, this essay examines male and female, masculine and feminine, and man and woman, carefully critiquing and distinguishing biological sex from gender expression and gender identity using a Queer theoretical framework to contextualize these distinctions in relation to queer identities. Through a modern contextualization, linguistic analysis, and a critical media examination of gender reveal images and footage, this essay acknowledges and analyzes the heteronormative structures that reinforce gender binaries. It challenges the deployment …