History of Gender Commons^™

'A Hundred Times A Man': Chastity, Martial Culture And Manhood In Franco's Spain, Ava M. Golde

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

Using the military as a case study, this essay seeks to understand how chastity became a symbol of complete regeneration for Spanish society, both in terms of a physical revival of a soldier’s health but also a moral and spiritual reawakening of the Catholic soul. In analyzing military magazines, instructional pamphlets, and the memoirs of soldiers, this paper unpacks the relationship between enforced male chastity and Francoist military masculinity, demonstrating how ideas of manhood were deliberately altered to fit a nationalist project of regeneration. Finally, I place this conception of the “New Spanish Man” within the broader context of militarized …

Female Perpetrators In Nazi Germany: The Effects Of Nazi Ideology And Radicalization On Three Female Concentration Camp Perpetrators, Stephanie Afonso

Graduate Masters Theses

The Second World War in Germany saw the largest number of civilian German women participating in brutal violence against Jewish peoples. The combination of sources used aids in presenting a broader image of these women both within the concentration camps and during their trials. This thesis argues the effects of Nazi ideology and radicalization on the three main subjects, Irma Grese, Maria Mandl, and Ilse Koch. Equally as important is how the American public perceived them and their roles during their respective post-war trials--which looked at them through the lens of femininity and sexuality. Within that violence came the transgression …

From Farewell To Fáilte: The Voices Of Iowa’S Irish Daughters, Katie Hermanson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Irish women’s immigration to Iowa brought rich culture and lasting impacts, despite their contributions being silenced by history. Women left Ireland for economic opportunity and education abroad to support their impoverished families. Millions emigrated between 1830 and 1915, spreading across the world. The Irish women who came to the United States encountered discrimination and cultural stereotyping as they worked in domestic service, developed religious orders, taught school, owned businesses and raised families. Women bore the burden of supporting their families in Ireland by sending remittances home and communicating between countries. Their cultural identity as exiles dwelled in guilt for leaving …

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.

Res Historica, Volume 5, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta, Lindsay Rae Smith Privette Phd

Res Historica

The 2026 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lindsay Rae Smith Privette, Julia Ackerman, Callyn Wright, Logan Davis, and John Hinton. Cover art by Mary Beth Lee.

Crafting The Right To Vote, Breana M. Mosher

Knowledge and Creativity Expo

This paper examines how British Suffragists between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used traditionally feminine domestic crafts as tools of political protest and communication. Excluded from formal political speech and subjected to censorship, violence, and imprisonment, women in the suffrage movement transformed textiles such as banners, posters, embroidery, and postcards into powerful tools of visual propaganda. Through close evaluation of suffrage-era material culture, this paper argues that domestic crafts enabled women to reclaim their voices and publicly expose state violence and political repression. By employing symbolism, color, and slogan-based design, suffragists created a recognizable visual identity that countered …

Objects Of Power: Female Instrumentalists In Medieval To Early Modern Europe, Emma Scherrer

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Women are difficult to locate in traditional histories of western music, especially performers and particularly instrumentalists. The relationship between a female performer, the instrument she played, and her audience was especially fraught, constituting a complicated web of gendered relations and power dynamics. An examination of the contexts in which women played instruments in medieval to early modern Europe elucidates how women in these societies interacted with music and musical institutions. While women were generally excluded from musical institutions and discouraged from playing most musical instruments, many women nevertheless chose to take up an instrument outside of professional contexts. From the …

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 …

Ritual And Revolution: Rethinking Roman Women’S Influence On Religion, Katlin Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis challenges the long-standing portrayal of Roman women as passive figures. Focusing on the mid-to-late Roman Republic and early Empire (264 B.C.E.–180 C.E.), it argues that women were active participants in Roman society, particularly through their engagement in religious life. Drawing on the theory of “lived religion,” this study highlights how religion offered Roman women opportunity to interact with both domestic and public spheres in socially acceptable means. Religion allowed women to exercise influence, power, and autonomy otherwise denied to them in political or legal contexts. Through a combination of textual analysis and material evidence, such as inscriptions and …

Can't Women Kill?: Women, Violence, And Power In Nazi Germany, Kelly Ornelas

History Theses

This thesis examines the role of women as perpetrators of violence within the Nazi apparatus, challenging traditional narratives that depict them as passive supporters or victims of their circumstances. Through a Foucauldian analysis, it explores how ordinary German women were conditioned by Nazi propaganda, manipulated discourses, and social expectations to engage in acts of brutality, often without direct orders. Case studies, including Erna Petri and Ilse Koch illustrate how women actively participated in the mechanisms of state violence without rank or official status, raising critical questions about complicity and moral responsibility. This study interrogates the bounds of guilt, arguing that …

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

The Rise And Fall Of The Contagious Diseases Acts: An Examination Of The Legislative Influences, Medical Discourse And Repeal Arguments, Elizabeth Henderson

All Theses

The Contagious Diseases Acts (CDA) were the most important legislative intervention concerning sexuality in the nineteenth century. The CDA was a public health measure passed to address the spread of venereal disease amongst the British Army and Navy, and targeted Britain's most vulnerable women – sex workers – because they were blamed for being the presumed cause and primary mode of spreading venereal disease. This resulted in the legalization of what critics of the CDA would call surgical assault, or instrumental rape, of working-class women suspected of being sex workers. Historians who study sexuality and sex work in Britain have …

Res Historica, Volume 4, Lynneth Miller Renberg Phd, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta

Res Historica

The 2025 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg, Samuel Sanders, and Julia Ackerman. The cover art for this volume is an open access image.

Under The Veil: Women's Head Coverings In Tudor England, Savannah Toth

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This thesis seeks to discover and analyze the agency and meaning of the role of women’s head coverings and veils within the context of Tudor Christianity, society, and the fashion world of English culture. By observing the usage of the veil through various lenses, this thesis examines the nuance of the veil as an object and actor in Tudor society that enables yet prohibits personal choice for women. This research uses various sources such as Tudor paintings and portraits, surviving pieces of garments, and written accounts to paint a picture of the impact and significance the veil had in every …

"A Changed Understanding Of Our Present": Moby-Dick As Prophetic Ecological Activism, Katie Ann Schini

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Moby-Dick: Or, The Whale is a classic of American literature, spanning multiple genres and remaining culturally relevant nearly 175 years after its original publication. Though on the surface Moby-Dick reads as an adventure story of a man who experiences the whaling industry firsthand, Herman Melville’s text continues to invite new generations of readership through the framework of the twenty-first century climate crisis.

In this thesis, I position Moby-Dick as a text that can be used to understand our modern society’s current dispositions of ecological grief. My thesis operates at the intersection of three main literary critical theories: ecocriticism, affect, and …

Enfilade And Variations: Interpreting Salon Music Through Residential Architecture In Eighteenth-Century Paris, Nicole Vilkner

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

In eighteenth-century Parisian salons, theme and variations on popular melodies proliferated. Elaine Sisman’s seminal study of variation form provides a foundational approach for understanding variations as rhetorical exercises that persuade through differences in syntax and expression. In this vein, scholars have comprehensively affirmed the ways that salon music reflects the dialogic and sociable practices of Enlightenment receptions (Hanning, Sutcliffe, and Zohn). I suggest that theme and variation form is not only connected to the rhetoric of the salon, but that the concept of sequential elaboration is a principle that was also prized in residential architecture.

Drawing from theoretical writings of …

Introduction: The Salon And The Senses In Eighteenth-Century France, Jennifer M. Jones, Rebecca Cypess

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

An introduction to a special collection of essays exploring the salon and the senses in eighteenth-century France. Provides an overview of the critical historiography on the salon and the role of salon hostesses. Explores new approaches to salon within the context of the history of the senses, with attention to the role of art, music, and sociability in salon culture. Provides an overview of the essays in the collection.

Resilience And Evolution: The Transformative Impact Of The Black Death On Women’S Roles In Medieval England, Kaylee N. Vitato

The Cardinal Edge

"Resilience and Evolution: The Transformative Impact of the Black Death on Women’s Roles in Medieval England" delves into the nuanced effects of the Black Death on gender dynamics in medieval England. While there were positive shifts in attitudes toward women's roles, persistent challenges, such as unequal employment conditions, lower wages compared to men, and negative household stereotypes, endured. The research examines alterations in labor markets, inheritance norms, property laws, and domestic dynamics to uncover the multifaceted impact of the Black Death on the evolution of women's roles. Despite emerging opportunities for women in previously male-dominated spheres, the analysis also reveals …

“Indescribable But Never To Be Forgotten”: Challenging The Gender Roles Of Victorian Era Women And Expanding Cultural Horizons Through Travels Abroad, Camryn Counsil

Student Publications

Between the years of 1862-8, the Webb-Black family traveled the world on a Grand Tour to countries such as Italy, Austria, and France. In letters home to their aunts, half-sisters Augusta, Menah, and Julia detailed their journeys within the physical and cultural spheres of the places they visited. Later copied into a bound volume, these epistles gave voice to women’s thoughts, emotions, and conflicts when exploring the realm of the unknown. From a young age, Victorian girls were taught to suppress their opinions and merely expect a life of motherhood. However, the women of these letters pushed beyond what was …

Phillis Wheatley Peters’S British Publicity Campaign, Susan Carlile

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

Scholarship has tended to place its focus on Phillis Wheatley Peters’ unsuccessful efforts in America, followed by an account of one British figure, the Countess of Huntingdon, who patronized the publication of Poems on Various Subjects in London in 1773. However, the chronology of the British campaign, the modes of print publication, and the locations in which Phillis Wheatley Peters’ words were published deserve closer attention. This essay highlights previously unknown or unremarked upon British publications outside London, the Drewry Derby Mercury, the Ipswich Journal, the Hibernian, and John Gillies’s Memoirs of the Life of the Reverend George Whitefield, …

The Women Eat Last: Traditions, Table Manners, And Gender Narratives At The Romanian Dining Table, Alexandra Constantinescu

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

Rooted in a rich history, with decades of oppressive politics and patriarchal displays of power, Romanian culture is shaped by complex narratives of resistance, endurance, adaptation, and transformation. Gender discourses in traditional Romanian culture portray women as the ideal frontline worker, heroic mother, outstanding housewife and an active member of the community. Expected to sacrifice personal aspirations and lifestyle for the well-being of others, they would almost exclusively be tasked with sourcing, preparing, and serving food for the family. They would be the last to sit at the family dining table - and the last to eat. In contrast, the …

Medieval German Christian Women’S Religious Experience, Elliot Knell

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

In the medieval period, both professed women and laywomen were deeply involved in manuscript production, and the use of books was often a vital part of their religious practices. In order to fully understand the value that manuscripts held for medieval women it is important to understand the medical and philosophical understandings of sex that permeated medieval society in order to better understand gendered experiences within Christian spaces. Additionally, examining how vision was understood as both a physical and spiritual process allows for a deeper understanding of how visual art is used in religious contexts. In the medieval period, understandings …

Manque De Réussite : Le Préjudice Dans Le Football Français, Will Bedell

World Languages and Cultures Senior Capstones

Despite being called The Beautiful Game, soccer in France has a few issues that take away from its beauty. This presentation aims to identify the causes and reasons behind the issues of racism, homophobia, and sexism which plague the French soccer scene. By looking at the causes of these from within French culture, history, and their society we can hope to understand why they exist as well as to establish the sources from which these issues arise.

The Women’S Renaissance: An Analysis Of Gender Expectations And Experiences In Early Modern Europe, Taryn Shelnutt-Beam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1976 Joan Kelly released her influential article “Did Women have a Renaissance?” Kelly argued that women did not enjoy any of the benefits of the period. Rather, she claimed, the lives of women were actually worse after the 1400s than they had been before. Since 1976, new primary documents authored by women have been discovered. Moreover, new access to relevant writings by authors like Francesco Barbaro, Pier Vergerio, Leonardo Bruni, Juan Luis Vives, and Erasmus make revisiting Kelly’s arguments possible. This thesis uses a sample of these texts to explore women’s experiences and create innovative avenues to explore in …

A Sense Of Loss: The Effect Of Prisoner Camp Conditions On German Pows’ Masculinity During The First World War, Analucia Lugo

The Purdue Historian

During the First World War, almost a million German soldiers became prisoners of war (POW) and held captive in enemy camps. The moment of capture and arrest caused these men to experience debilitating emotions, including guilt and fear. Varied conditions at POW camps bolstered these responses and often determined prisoner health and morale throughout the war. This article examines how camps in Britain, France, and Russia treated German POWs, and how German nationalism affected these soldiers' senses of masculinity and patriotism during and after the war.

Radically Feminist Or Monstrously Feminine?: Witches And Goddesses In Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018), Lindsay Macumber

Journal of Religion & Film

Guadagnino’s 2018 remake of Suspiria explicitly and implicitly incorporates two connected myths, witchcraft and goddess centered matriarchal prehistory. The fact that each of these myths have been claimed by feminists in myriad ways may explain Guadagnino’s claim that Suspiria is a great feminist film that escapes the male gaze. In this article, I argue that Guadagnino’s representation of these myths lays bare their misogynistic origins and perpetuates, rather than subverts, patriarchal power structures.

Res Historica, Volume 3, Lynneth Miller Renberg Phd, Alpha Rho Epsilon Phi Alpha Theta

Res Historica

The 2024 journal of historical research by Anderson University students, Res Historica.

The editorial team for this edition of Res Historica was Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg, Johnathan Sorce, and Samuel Sanders.

Bouguereau’S Vampires: Navigating Transgressive Desire In Dante Et Virgile, Angelina Diamante

MA Theses

This thesis investigates William Bouguereau’s Dante et Virgile (1850) in the context of nineteenth century vampire literature, emerging as the seminal text on the matter. Through a cross-discipline examination of Dante’s Divina Commedia (ca. 1308–1321), and two canonical works of Gothic vampire fiction — John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872), respectively — prominent affinities are articulated. Comprising a broad scope, this text propounds a panoptic argument that such consonance is demonstrative of a reconciliation between the classical and Gothic, forged by nuances of the composition’s own nineteenth century — the Byronic hero, homoeroticism, Neoclassicism, …

Beauvoir, “French” Feminisms, And “Translation Work:” A Roundtable Conversation, Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This conversation featuring four scholars—Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin, Lorraine Delavaud, Marine Vaslin—took place on zoom on December 1, 2023. It was organized, transcribed, and edited by Sandrine Sanos who also wrote the introduction to contextualize the conversation. The roundtable reflects on the making of the translation of Judith Coffin’s book on Beauvoir; and how it became a collective object, and the challenges and productive limitations that it involved, showing how such a project helped forge and relied upon transnational, transdisciplinary, and transgenerational feminist solidarities. The ways Beauvoir became a transatlantic object sheds light on the ways that the book …

It's Written All Over Your Face: A Cultural And Gender History Of The Face In The Middle Ages, 1170-1500, Lacey N. Bonar Hull

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

At a time of vast social and cultural shifts, people living in western Europe from the late twelfth to the late fifteenth centuries developed and employed methods to “read” the faces of others. This practice promoted the interpretation of inner qualities from external appearances, often used to communicate adherence to or deviation from boundaries of gendered behaviors. My project explores medieval understandings concerning this particular feature of the human body, analyzing discourses concerning the face as a site of symbolism for inner character. While scholars have studied understandings of the self and the “Other” during this period, the role of …