Browsing by Subject "Feminism"

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A room of her own : romance, resistance, and feminist thought in modern Urdu poetry
(2015-05) Khan, Imran Hameed, 1975-; Hyder, Syed Akbar; Petievich, Carla; Minault, Gail; Visweswaran, Kamala; Hindman, Heather; Mohammad, Mahboob A
This dissertation examines the ways in which the female figure has emerged, and the ways in which women’s issues have been addressed in Urdu poetry in various ways during the twentieth century. In order to track these changes and shifts in the Urdu poetic landscape I examine five poets: Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), Akhtar Shirani (1905-1948), Kaifi Azmi (1919-2002), Parveen Shakir (1952-1994), and Ishrat Afreen (b. 1956). I argue that each of these poets represents a distinct trend in the way women are discussed in Urdu poetry. While looking at these five poets I will consider the social context in which they were writing and how their poetry engages the canonical aesthetics of the past, along with the socio-political agendas of the present. By analyzing their poetry we can trace how through romance and resistance feminist thought developed in increments throughout the twentieth century. This poetry is a reflection of the social and cultural milieus in which it was written; it can help us understand how these poets understood their roles within their culture, as well as how they tried to push the boundaries of accepted cultural norms. Through these poets we can observe how the subject of Woman, women’s issues, and gender ideology evolved in twentieth century Urdu poetry. Furthermore, studying these poets shows us how the space created by earlier poets eventually led to women using the Urdu poetry landscape for overt feminist poetry, lending authentic women’s voices to women’s issues and movements in South Asia.
Another other : redefining feminism on Al-Jazeera
(2014-05) Williams, Lauren Ann; Al-Batal, Mahmoud
Women and women’s issues receive a great deal of attention on Al-Jazeera English, increasing the visibility of feminist ideologies in the transnational media and promoting a space for new and greater feminist discourse. This thesis seeks to discover how and why Al-Jazeera undertakes such promotion and what links it possesses to the larger sociopolitical climate of the Middle East as a whole. In pursuit of these goals, the study examines the journalistic content, unconscious style, and linguistic structures used in articles about women on the Al-Jazeera English website to conclude that this attention is primarily supportive of feminist ideologies, though more so with regards to women from areas that fall outside of the regions dominated by the hegemonic Anglo-American media establishment. In circumstances of revolution and change, Al-Jazeera invokes women to highlight their active agency and demonstrate their social power. Where such change is not possible, articles employ more reserved and passive techniques to convey the stagnancy of the situation. When this stagnant situation occurs in the United States or Europe, however, Al-Jazeera journalists express much less sympathy than when similar situations occur in less developed countries. Women from these less developed areas are also highlighted more often in positions of power and influence. Based on this evidence, the study concludes that Al-Jazeera’s attention to women plays a role in a larger movement to develop an ideological culture base without roots in the United States or Europe. By building a feminism tied to local women, Al-Jazeera is providing an alternative to the widespread and diametrically opposed systems of cultural imperialism and stalwart traditionalism. By proving that feminist ideologies can consist of Arab, African, or Indian ideas as much as American or European ones, Al-Jazeera paves the way for discrete ideological development in regions suffering from the aftershocks of cultural appropriation and imperialism.
"Are you getting angry Doctor?" : Madea, strategy and the fictional rejection of black female containment
(2014-05) Faust, Mitchell R.; Richardson, Matt, 1969-
Within the scope of this thesis, I provide close textual and visual readings of director/actor/producer Tyler Perry's most well-known character, Mable "Madea" Simmons -- a performance he does in full female drag attire -- focusing on his mainstream hit film, Madea Goes to Jail (2009). My reading of the character of Madea veers against the common narrative her existence being just another recycled trope of men disguised as women only to perform in stereotypical and demonizing behavior. I argue Madea represents what I refer to as a "trans*female character", within the space of Perry's popular film that feature her. Read through the lens of being trans*female character, I propose this shift in analysis and critique of cinematic displays of drag helps to transgress beyond male/female binaries of acceptable and possible visual gender representations. More in-depth, using the theoretical concept of Gwendolyn Pough's "bringing wreck", I make the argument that while ostensibly representing the "angry black woman" stereotype, Madea's characterization and actions within the film represent strategies and efforts to not be contained within hegemonic ideals of black female respectability politics and the law efforts to put her behind bars. By "bringing wreck", Madea's fictional acts of violence and talking back are read as a strategy that reflects a historical trend of misrecognition that renders black women's concerns and discontent with marginalization as irrational anger.
Artaud's "Daughters" : "Plague," "Double," and "Cruelty" as feminist performance practices of transformation
(2012-05) Barfield, Heather Leigh; Jones, Omi Osun Joni L., 1955-; Canning, Charlotte; Jones, Omi Osun Joni L., 1955-; Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul; Strong, Pauline; Stone, Allucquere
The purpose of this study was to identify Artaudian criteria contained in three different performance practices including (1) a television performance, (2) a live performance, and (3) a workshop performance. These included, respectively, (1) an episode from The X-Files television series; (2) MetamorphoSex, a live ritual performance with performance artist Annie Sprinkle; and (3) Rachel Rosenthal’s DbD Experience Workshop. Core criteria of Artaudian Theater of Cruelty were established through analyses of the relevant literature. These criteria were then coupled with characteristics of French feminist theory and a “shamanistic” perspective to create a theoretical-analytic tool with Artaudian criteria as its centerpiece. Also, performance analysis, experiential and experimental reflexive-subjectivity, and performative poetics were techniques applied for analytic purposes. Analyses identified a range of Artaudian criteria and feminist and “shamanistic” characteristics in the three performances; these included radical and performative poetics, embodied states of ecstasy and transformation, and non-reliance on written texts and scripts in performance practices. Among other things, analyses of different performance practices indicates that identified Artaudian performances, as a whole, tend to hinge upon performing “in the extreme” and may inadvertently serve to reinscribe race and imperialist hegemonies through an exaggeration of performing “whiteness in the extreme.” Additionally, women performing “in the extreme” are often unfairly characterized as heightened and exaggerated examples of “womanness.” Masked behind themes of women’s empowerment are cultural and performative archetypes of woman as “goddess,” “monster,” or heartless “cyborg.” Implications of these findings are discussed as well as the creation of public spaces where groups of people gather for an “extreme” performative event that, through dramatic spectacle and purpose, unites them with a particular theme or focus. It is argued that such spaces have the potential to catalyze endeavors seeking transformation and, in particular, transform the social lives of the participants.
Bear fruit
(2016-05) Lawrence, Grace Lee; Stoney, John; Reynolds, Ann M
This Master’s Report is a discussion of the ideas, research, and methods I have developed over the course of my three years of study at the University of Texas at Austin. My work draws from a multiplicity of traditions from classical figurative sculpture, feminism, mid-century modern design, large-scale outdoor fountains, to Victorian crafts. The fountains use neoclassical figurative sculptures of women as a point of departure. The original sculpture is translated through a feminist lens and recreated using fruit, rearranging and displacing gender specific sexualities by replacing otherwise sexualized bodies with representations of pears or a pineapple, among other fruits. Cultural references to these specific fruits, a pear-shaped body or the exoticism and colonialism inferred with a pineapple, are important contextual references in the transmutation from figurative sculpture to fruit fountain. The high relief wall sculptures, smooth body parts monochromed in soft colors, speak to the fragments of classical sculptures while conflating gender cues. They confuse our ability to stereotype as non-binary representations of body. In all, the work mimics moments of bodily intimacy while playfully dealing with reproduction, eroticism, as well as the problematic aspects of the sculptural tradition embedded within the patriarchal system.
Becoming a media activist : linking culture, identity, and web design
(2011-12) Fineman, Elissa Arra; Staiger, Janet; Christ, Bill; Kearney, Mary; Stone, Alluquere; Straubhaar, Joseph
This dissertation explored two facets of media activism. It used a Life History research methodology to understand how someone becomes a media activist, and it employed a textual analysis to explain the visual interface choices made by a media activist on the Internet. Throughout, the study is informed by theories of social identity, authorship, visual culture, and agency. The results that emerged offer insight into four areas of media studies: digital resistance, media education, digital aesthetics, and the use of social psychology to understand new media production.
Challenges to women finding their voice : a case study of speaking up against sexual assault when the perpetrator is a federal judge
(2011-12) Poffinbarger, Sandra Rae; Sherry, Alissa; Hardwick, Julie
Examining historical ideology of women’s position within society and how that socialization has influenced historical legal cases of gender inequality is the backdrop for a modern case study of sexual harassment and sexual assault. This thesis explores how women’s voices have been, and continue to be, silenced socially and legally through ages old ideology of women’s subordination to men. By examining a 2007 legal case of ongoing sexual harassment and sexual assault perpetrated by Federal Judge Samuel Kent against women in subordinate positions working within his courthouse it is demonstrated that socialization of gender inequality is stronger and slower to change than the laws prohibiting it.
Cita : a feminist open-access digital library and print-on-demand publisher
(2018-05-07) Castro Varón, Juliana; Park, Jiwon, M.F.A.; Gorman, Carma
Most of the nineteenth century’s feminist literature is now in the public domain, but many of these writings are not being republished by commercial publishers. When publishers do reprint public-domain texts, they rarely do so in open-access book formats. Because commercial publishers invest in curating and marketing well designed collections of reprints, they frequently commission original annotations or introductions from scholars, which in turn enables them to copyright and profit from their new editions. In contrast, Internet-based archives such as Google Books, HathiTrust, and Archive.org make an enormous corpus of public-domain books available for free online, but do so as scans or in poorly designed digital formats. Moreover, internet archives usually do not make their collections particularly navigable or appealing to non-scholarly audiences, nor do they make it properly designed and easy to print. Responding to the lack of well designed, affordable public-domain reprints, Cita is an open-access feminist digital library and print-on-demand publisher that promotes and distributes the writings of female authors whose works are open-licensed or in the public domain. Cita’s network of scholars and designers works to make and distribute free, high-quality editions that readers can view online using any device, or download, print, and—following simple instructions—bind for personal, library, museum, or school use.
The corporeality of trauma, memory, and resistance : writing the body in contemporary fiction from Chile and Argentina
(2014-05) Tille-Victorica, Nancy Jacqueline; Lindstrom, Naomi, 1950-; Domínguez-Ruvalcaba, Héctor; Heinzelman, Susan Sage; Robbins, Jill; Wettlaufer, Alexandra
This dissertation looks at the representation and impact of gendered violence in the novel Pasos bajo el agua (1986) and in the short stories in Ofrenda de propia piel (2004) by Argentine author and former political prisoner Alicia Kozameh (b. 1953), as well as in Jamás el fuego nunca (2007) and Impuesto a la carne (2010), two novels by Chilean writer Diamela Eltit (b. 1949). By examining the particular expressions of physical and psychological pain in the aforementioned texts, I demonstrate that Kozameh and Eltit write the female body to simultaneously represent a corporeality that, until recently, has rarely been expressed in literature, and reconstruct a body that has been traumatized by state-sponsored violence and by what could be considered economic violence. Both of them denounce violence, torture, disappearances, exile, and indifference to justice as painful events that not only damage the spirits of the victims, but that are also inscribed upon the physical body. I also show how each author addresses the overlapping of individual and collective traumatic memories and how these are felt in the body as well. Finally, I argue that writing the materiality of the lived body, from its vulnerability to its resilience, provides for Kozameh and Eltit valuable insight into the ways in which female bodies are able to resist and reassess the meaning imposed on them by legally-endorsed and non-official systems of oppression. Their work thus has direct viii social relevance that goes beyond feminism's countering of male dominance and women's rights. Yet, I also show that they manifest their feminist commitment by using the voice and body of female subjects to incorporate marginalized Chilean and Argentine bodies into the linguistic realm in order to provide a fuller understanding of female corporeality in Latin America.
Cultivating community : socially responsible pedagogy in the devising process
(2015-05) Thomas, Emily Aguilar; Schroeder-Arce, Roxanne; Dawson, Kathryn; González-López, Gloria
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, statistics show that young people are experiencing sexual violence at the hands of adults and often do not tell anyone about their experiences ("Reporting of Sexual Violence Incidents"). Weaving research and practice in sexual violence and Applied Theatre, this case study explores the process of building community among participants while learning through and about these key content areas. Through a devising process that worked toward creating an original Applied Theatre program for young audiences, the researcher interrogates how enacting socially responsible pedagogy informed the process and nurtured a learning community. Enacting a critically-engaged pedagogy, this document invites artists, practitioners and pedagogues to consider how a feminist pedagogy might shape a socially-engaged art-making process and incite participants to take constructive action in their communities.
Culture in the crucible : Pussy Riot and the politics of art in contemporary Russia
(2013-08) Johnston, Rebecca Adeline; Garza, Thomas J.
There is a consistent thread throughout Russian history of governmental management of culture. Tsars and Communist bureaucrats alike have sought to variously promote, censor, or exploit writers, filmmakers, and musicians to control and define the country's cultural content. Often, these measures were intended not necessarily to cultivate Russia's aesthetic spirit, but to accomplish specific policy goals. The promotion of a State ideology and other efforts to stave of social unrest were chief among them. With the fall of Soviet power and the loss of an official ideology promoted by the state, the concept of cultural politics fell to the wayside. It has remained largely ignored ever since. Despite numerous high-profile incidents of persecution of the creative class, analysts have not linked them together as part of an overarching cultural policy. However, the Russian government under Vladimir Putin has faced consistent policy challenges since the beginning of the 2000s that could be mitigated through the implementation of such a policy. In some ways, the breadth and character of State involvement in the cultural sphere follows the pattern of the country’s autocratic past. In others, it demonstrates that it has adapted these policies to function in the hybrid regime that Putin has created, as opposed to the totalitarian ones that preceded it. A recent case that exemplifies this new breed of cultural policy is the persecution of the radical feminist punk band Pussy Riot. While largely unknown to many Russian citizens, the group’s overt opposition to the patriarchal model of rule established by Putin with the help of the Russian Orthodox Church was met by the most comprehensive crackdown within the cultural sphere since perestroika. Examining this case in detail can reveal the extent to which the Russian government is concerned about its ability to maintain popular legitimacy. The fact that it has continued to try to manage the cultural sphere may indicate the level of democracy that has or has not been established in Russia so far today.
Defending Pussy Riot metonymically : the trial representations, media and social movements in Russia and the United States
(2013-05) Kolesova, Ekaterina Sergeyevna; Cloud, Dana L.
During August 2012 the issues of women's rights in Russia attracted attention of the U.S. newspapers, which was an unusual occurrence for this unprivileged region in feminist theorizing. In my thesis I explore the rhetoric around the Pussy Riot trial and verdict. I argue that international media rendered the protest metonymically, thereby reducing its political content to human rights and Cold War frames. I explore the usage of historical references in the narratives, based on these paradigms. The oppressiveness of the Russian government is constructed through Cold War rhetoric by references to Stalinism, which masks the neoliberal content of this case. The confrontation is represented as a clash of cultures based on the contrast between democracy and oppressive regimes, with Pussy Riot as martyrs for Western values and Putin as an Oriental dictator. I argue that this rhetoric has troubling implications for social activism, that democracy could be only achieved through non-violent and individualist symbolic activism which relies on the Western standards. The second part of my thesis analyzes how social movements in the U.S. and Russia interact with each other and influence each other's tactics through interaction with media representations of the Pussy Riot trial and dominant narratives regarding activism. My support for this argument comes from an analysis of the U.S. and Russian movements' responses to the Pussy Riot trial. Embracing a complex combination of political meanings, these events were significantly determined by prolific mass media coverage and mediated interaction between activist groups.
Did I Want To Be With The Band? A Study Of Feminism And Consent In The Time Of Sex, Drugs And Rock’N Roll
(2019-05-01) Hartmann, McKenzie; Lewis, Hannah
The nature of Groupies’ reputation in the music industry caused many people to belittle their role in the narrative of rock music of the 60s and 70s despite the fact that they exerted substantial influence on both the music and women’s rights. While the term ‘Groupie’ itself is primarily associated with women who sleep with rock stars, the reality of the time was that any woman who enjoyed rock music was categorized as a Groupie including journalists, musicians and fans. This classification of all women into a singular, derogatory group served the dual purpose of marginalizes women’s voices in rock and implying that women’s only contribution was to serve the interests of the male musicians. It also undermines the fact that the few women who transcended from these categories into being ‘Groupies’ in the traditional sense of the word directly influenced the culture of the time by serving more as muses and acting as a voice for the female sexual revolution. My intention with this project is to find the specific ways that ‘Groupies’ impacted the 60s and 70s and see how that impact aided modern feminist movements, while also considering the rock narrative as perpetuated by journalists and how it failed to adequately represent women.
Distant intimacies : queer literature and the visual in the U.S. and Argentina
(2015-08) Francica, Cynthia Alicia; Cvetkovich, Ann, 1957-; Giunta, Andrea; Moore, Lisa; Richmond-Garza, Elizabeth; Carcamo-Huechante, Luis
This dissertation focuses on literary and visual works produced by queer/feminist Argentine press and art gallery ‘Belleza y Felicidad’ (1999-2007) and its encounter with ‘Belladonna*’ (1999-present), a U.S. reading series and publishing project. It seeks to describe the ways in which the precarious modes of production, circulation, and reception of the literary and visual artworks of ‘Belleza y Felicidad’ both enable and are enabled by local and hemispheric social networks grounded on embodied, affective approaches to aesthetic practices. I argue that those queer/feminist creative networks become embedded in works by authors such as Fernanda Laguna, Pablo Pérez, César Aira, and Roberto Jacoby. Bringing academic attention to the fragile materiality of the works produced by these authors, my research involves an effort to map, collect and register the ephemeral literary and visual archive of this crucial moment of Latin American queer cultural production. This dissertation crafts the notion of ‘distant intimacies’ to account for the formal, affective, and sensorial qualities of these works as well as for the local and hemispheric modes of queer relationality on which they are grounded. It shows that, through their investment in ‘distant intimacies,’ the literary and visual objects it studies consistently investigate experimental modes of community formation. That investigation of intimate bonds, in turn, grounds ‘Belleza y Felicidad’ chapbooks and visual artworks’ deployment of what I term ‘dystopian utopias’—queer imaginings, visuals, precarious materialities, and affectively charged performances which function to rethink radical politics at the moment of the Argentine neoliberal social crisis of the late 1990s and early 2000s. This dissertation claims that these works’ dys/utopian projections give account of the multiple ways in which recent and long histories of local and global economic, social, and political violence become enmeshed with queer affects and desires in the Argentine context.
Drumming Asian America : performing race, gender, and sexuality in North American taiko
(2011-05) Ahlgren, Angela Kristine; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-; Dolan, Jill, 1957-; Paredez, Deborah; Jones, Joni L.; Wong, Deborah
Taiko is a highly physical and theatrical form of ensemble drumming that was popularized in 1950s Japan and has been widely practiced in Japanese American and other Asian American communities since the late 1960s. Taiko’s visual and sonic largesse—outstretched limbs and thundering drums—contrasted with pervasive stereotypes of Asians as silent and passive. This dissertation uses ethnographic participant-observation, archival research, and performance analysis to examine how North American taiko performance produces and is produced by the shifting contours of racial, gender, and sexual identity and community. Taiko groups create, re-shape, and challenge familiar notions of Asia, America, and Asian America through their public performances and in their rehearsal processes. While sometimes implicated in Orientalist performance contexts, taiko players use performance strategically to commemorate Asian American history, to convey feelings of empowerment, and to invite feminist, anti-racist, and queer forms of spectatorship. This dissertation explores taiko’s roots in the Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, its implications for 1990s multiculturalism, as well as its intersections with contemporary queer communities. My analysis focuses on three case study groups whose origins, philosophies, and geographic locations offer a diverse view of North American taiko and the Asian American/Canadian communities with which they are associated. Chapter One considers how San Jose Taiko’s early articulation of their identity as an Asian American taiko group continues to influence its practices and performances, particularly their taiko-dance piece, “Ei Ja Nai Ka?” and their national tours. Chapter Two examines how Minneapolis-based Mu Daiko negotiates its members’ diverse racial, ethnic, and gender identities within a Midwestern context that values multiculturalism. Chapter Three considers how the all-women’s group Jodaiko conveys Asian American lesbian identity and invites queer spectatorship through theatrical performance choices and its members’ everyday gender performances. My analysis extends from my ethnographic participant-observation, which includes personal interviews, attendance at workshops and performances, and spending time with performers; archival research in formal collections, groups’ internal documents, and my personal archive of taiko programs, posters, photographs, DVDs, and other ephemera; and performance analysis that is informed by my twelve years of experience as a taiko performer.
Even in their dresses the females seem to bid us defiance : Boston women and performance 1762-1823
(2008-12) Kokai, Jennifer Anne; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-
This dissertation constructs a cultural history of women's performances in Boston from 1762-1823, using materialist feminism and ethnohistory. I look at how "woman" was historically understood at that time, and how women used those discourses to their advantage when constructing performances that allowed them to intervene in political culture. I examine a broad range of performance activities from white, black, and Native American women of all classes. Chapter two discusses three of Boston's elite female intellectuals: Mercy Otis Warren, Judith Sargent Murray, and Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton. Though each woman's writings have been examined individually, I examine them as a community. With the connections and public recognition they built, they helped found the Federal Street Theatre where they could have a ventrioloquized embodied performance for their ideas on women's rights, abolition, and political parties. Chapter three looks at the construction of three solo performances: Phillis Wheatley performing her poetry in 1772; the 1802 theatre tour of Deborah Sampson Gannett, who fought as a man in the revolution; and the monologues and wax effigy creations of Patience Lovell Wright circa 1772. These women depended on their performances for sustenance, and in Wheatley's case, to secure her freedom from bondage. I look at the way these women created a mythology about themselves and crafted a marketable image, both on and off the stage. In particular, I examine the ways each grappled with a charged discourse surrounding their bodies. In chapter four I look at fashion as performance. I explore homespun dresses as political propaganda, Native American and black women's use of clothing to express cultural pride that white Anglo society had attempted to erase, and the way that women used mourning costumes to perform and create nationalism at the mock funerals held for Washington after he died in 1799. In my conclusion I contrast the 2008 miniseries John Adams with a solo performance of Phillis Wheatley. I briefly trace the trajectory of the history of women during this time. I argue that focusing on performance identifies and legitimizes other sources of evidence and locates examples of women's agency in shaping popular culture.
The evolved radical feminism of spoken word : Alix Olson, C.C. Carter, and Suheir Hammad
(2013-05) Rozman, Rachel Beth; Moore, Lisa L. (Lisa Lynne)
Radical feminism is often associated with the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. Although powerful in its goals of solidarity and coalitions, the movement is often criticized for its lack of attention to intersecting systems of power. However, several contemporary feminist spoken word poets are reconceptualizing radical feminism in their political projects, using the theories and activist strategies while paying attention to race, class, and sexuality. This piece traces some of the history and literature of radical feminism, Woman of Color feminism, contemporary Islamic feminism, and spoken word poetry. Using these frameworks, I close-read three poems: "Womyn Before" by Alix Olson, "The Herstory of My Hips" by C.C. Carter, and "99 cent lipstick" by Suheir Hammad to discuss the manner in which each uses coalitions. Olson's poem provides an analysis of the performative and textual aspects of the poem as a way to envision an activist project grounded in old social movements. Carter's poem connects history and archives, using a Woman of Color framework, and through Hammad, the structural critiques of an unjust system that disadvantages minority youth are seen through lenses of Women of Color and Islamic feminism. While these poets gain some knowledge from radical feminism, they interpret it in their poetry in ways that address the intersections of identity.
"The face of god has changed" : Tejana cultural production and the politics of spirituality in the borderlands
(2010-08) Sendejo, Brenda Lee; Flores, Richard R.; Menchaca, Martha; Strong, Pauline; Martinez, Anne M.; Zamora, Emilio
This ethnography of spirituality explores the production of cultural practices and beliefs among a group of Texas Mexican women (Tejanas) of the post-World War II generation. These women have been involved with various social justice initiatives since the 1960s and 1970s in Texas, such as the Chicana feminist and Chicano civil rights movements. This study explains how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect and interact in these women’s geographic and spiritual borderlands to produce a pattern of change in the ways they choose to engage with religion, particularly Catholicism. While the Tejana spiritual productions examined here are in many ways distinct from the religious practices of these women’s Catholic upbringings, they also recall religious rituals and traditions from their imagined, constructed, and engaged pasts. Some women have left Catholicism for other forms of spiritual fulfillment, including earth-based, indigenous, and/or Eastern religious practices, while others have remained Catholic-identified, yet altered how they practice Catholicism. A common theme in the narratives is that of spiritual agency – the conscious decision women make to reconfigure their spiritual practices and beliefs. I explore the meaning of such acts and what they indicate about the construction of spiritual and religious identities in the borderlands. I argue that because gender structures Tejana religious experiences to such a wide extent, a critical gender analysis of religious and spiritual practices will provide deeper insight into the making of Texas Mexican culture and social relations. I examine the women’s life experiences through a methodological framework I call mujerista ethnography, which draws on oral history and research methods employed by feminist, indigenous, and Chicana/o Studies scholars. In order to further illustrate how the women’s material and spiritual needs have changed so as to require new forms of spiritual engagement, I engage in a critical self-reflection of my own spiritual journey as a Tejana raised in the Catholic faith through the use of autoethnographic research methods and testimonio. I argue that these Tejanas have extended the political, feminist, and historical consciousnesses that they cultivated in Mexican American social causes into the religious and spiritual realms. For instance, these women transferred their critique of gender politics and hierarchies of power into the social setting of organized Catholicism with new spiritual practices and understandings, effectively remaking religion and subsequently engaging in processes of self-making by changing the ways they interact with Catholicism and are affected by it. Religion, as a site of social struggle for women, is political, that is, these Tejanas transformed the spiritual into a site of resistance, resolution, and reconciliation where they disrupt and challenge hierarchies of power and create strategies for healing themselves, their communities, and the earth.
The (fe)male shifts shame : androgyny and transformation in Marie de France, Gerald of Wales, and the Volsungasaga
(2013-05) Gutierrez-Neal, Paula Christina; Wojciehowski, Hannah Chapelle, 1957-; Blockley, Mary
Transformation is inherently entwined with the transgression of borders; for male shifters, there is an acquittance of this transhuman breach, but not so for female shifters. Gerald of Wale's History and Topography of Ireland depicts two werewolves: the male's shapeshifting is all but disregarded, while the female's own transformation is depicted in detail and effectively shames her into silence. In addition, the Volsungasaga also contains werewolves: Sigmund and Sinfjotli don wolfskins, but soon regret their transformations. However, neither is shamed for the shapeshifting, and indeed, Sinfjotli successfully twists the experience to his advantage. The female werewolf, King Siggeir's mother, however, is killed and her identity as a "foul" witch exposed. There are also the human-to-human transformations of Signy/a witch and Sigurd/Gunnar. Signy expresses shame for the incident; Sigurd and Gunnar's plot is revealed, but neither is condemned: the tale passes over the shapeshifting in favor of the narrative drama. Furthermore, Marie de France's Bisclavret perpetuates the same pattern: the male werewolf is praised and exonerated for his transhuman nature while the wife's pseudo-shapeshifting is met with condemnation and shame. However, Marie de France's Yonec attempts to break this pattern, with the shapeshifter Muldumarec transgressing not only the animal/human binary but that of the male/female. His androgyny is conferred onto his beloved, who also undergoes transformations but is spared the shaming consequences via Muldumarec. While this sharing of androgyny breaks the pattern and keeps the beloved from condemnation, it ultimately fails in breaking the patriarchal underpinnings of the pattern itself.
Feminism, care work, and collectivity : the case of progressive self-care
(2021-07-30) Berumen, Gwendolyn Marie; Williams, Christine L., 1959-
This study is an investigation into the social nature of self-care. Using the specific case of a phenomenon that I refer to as “progressive self-care,” I study a collection of groups that come together in order to practice a form of self-care that attempts to remove itself from capitalist productivity and consumption practices. Using Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Theory and Paula England’s Care as a Public Good framework, I find that groups attempt to politicize the nature of their meetings and the discourses surrounding rest, identity, and care in order to differentiate their practices from mainstream practices. I also find that collectivity is central to progressive self-care because it is fundamentally a collective practice, not an individual one. Finally, I find that progressive self-care practitioners use selfcare practices and discourses to dissect meanings of care and care work. I finish this study by discussing the implications of this work for further sociological research