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Title: Authority and molestation in Jeanette Winterson's "Sexing the Cherry".
Creator: Smith, Rhonda C., Florida Atlantic University, Furman, Andrew
Abstract/Description: Jeanette Winterson's novel Sexing the Cherry addresses literary genres in which women's voices have been silenced or marginalized, demonstrating John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill's claim that only when women have "lived in a different country from men and [have] never read any of their writings [will] they have a literature of their own" (207). This philosophy may be viewed in light of Edward Said's theory of colonization in which he argues that a people who colonize by violence...
Show moreJeanette Winterson's novel Sexing the Cherry addresses literary genres in which women's voices have been silenced or marginalized, demonstrating John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill's claim that only when women have "lived in a different country from men and [have] never read any of their writings [will] they have a literature of their own" (207). This philosophy may be viewed in light of Edward Said's theory of colonization in which he argues that a people who colonize by violence maintain authority, while those people who are colonized are subject to "the paternalistic arrogance of imperialism" (Culture xviii). Winterson's desire to reclaim the authority of women illustrates her need for permission to narrate and to be "taken out of the Prism of [her] own experience" (Winterson, Into 17). As a result, she rewrites history, myth, fairy tale, and pornography, reversing the traditional gender roles and inverting the gender hierarchy. Women, in Sexing the Cherry maintain the authority and the Power to molest the now weaker sex, man.
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Date Issued: 1999
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15715
Subject Headings: Winterson, Jeanette,--1959---Sexing the cherry, Women in literature, Violence in literature, Myth in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Naples: The mother city.
Creator: Giannini, Natalia Rita., Florida Atlantic University, Tamburri, Anthony J., Brennan, Teresa
Abstract/Description: Suspended in the corporeality of the baroque, with its emphasis on cycles and simultaneity, rather than linearity, Naples epitomizes the mother space that has been objectified and appropriated by male subjectivity and its alienating rationality, as articulated by the homogenizing discourse of psychoanalysis. This paradigmatic metropolis which actualizes its ancient Greek signification as a "mother-city"---Naples was originally named after the Homeric siren, Parthenope, and associated...
Show moreSuspended in the corporeality of the baroque, with its emphasis on cycles and simultaneity, rather than linearity, Naples epitomizes the mother space that has been objectified and appropriated by male subjectivity and its alienating rationality, as articulated by the homogenizing discourse of psychoanalysis. This paradigmatic metropolis which actualizes its ancient Greek signification as a "mother-city"---Naples was originally named after the Homeric siren, Parthenope, and associated throughout history with various feminine incarnations (the Cumaean sibyl, the Madonna)---asserts a form of reason that transcends the imposition of the Lacanian signification of the phallus and its dichotomizing paradigm of subjectivity. In Anna Maria Ortese's Il mare non bagna Napoli (1953), the phallus is revealed as a void, which subverts not only the "enlightened" knowledge of the phallus, but the debasing obliteration of the feminine as the "unsayable." In Naples, the mother signifies through the negativity, nothingness, and absence emblematic of the womb. Literally "debellied" by the modernizing impetus of a unified Italy after the cholera epidemic of 1884, Parthenope embodies a feminine grotesque aesthetic, as articulated by Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover (1992), in which the preeminence of bodily processes effects a critical interruption of Naples's transition to the "Enlightenment." The womb rejects the univocality of the phallus and arguably signifies through nourishment, which, unlike the libido, affirms a subject that emerges out of a counter-paradigmatic continuity with the mother, who can simultaneously be and endow others with being. The mother prevents the subject from imposing an artificial self-sufficiency, as evinced in Jean-Paul Sartre's Spaesamento: Napoli e Capri (2000), where the protagonist debases the maternal nourishment prevalent in Naples in order to empty it of its life-giving power. In turn, by affirming a dialectic that emerges out of the maternal body, Naples bypasses the civilizatory claims of repression and its dualistic mechanization of the psyche in terms of the conscious and the unconscious, and thereby fulfills the all-encompassing realm of the fantastical, which, as in Ortese's Il Monaciello di Napoli (1940), attains its validity through a paradoxically creative and destructive maternal reason that is both a sign of excess and containment.
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Date Issued: 2003
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12024
Subject Headings: Sex symbolism, Naples (Italy)--In literature, Psychoanalysis and literature, Femininity in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A cross cultural perspective on the issue of gender and contamination in urban legends.
Creator: Herndon, Kirstin Renee., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: In his article, "The Kentucky Fried Rat : Legends and Modem Society", Gary Alan Fine suggests that American society is a folk community in which urban legends play the role of negotiating changes in social structure and other aspects of daily life (Fine 2005). Fine's argument, however, is limiting in that it only considers urban legends within the United States and fails to encompass those from abroad. As such, this thesis expands Fine's original argument to a global scale by examining urban...
Show moreIn his article, "The Kentucky Fried Rat : Legends and Modem Society", Gary Alan Fine suggests that American society is a folk community in which urban legends play the role of negotiating changes in social structure and other aspects of daily life (Fine 2005). Fine's argument, however, is limiting in that it only considers urban legends within the United States and fails to encompass those from abroad. As such, this thesis expands Fine's original argument to a global scale by examining urban legends, crossculturally, that involve instances of women being brutalized and objects or people being contaminated. Ultimately, the thematic elements and grotesque imagery that are used in these two categories of legends are a symbolic expression of tensions surrounding the movement of women out of the home and the increased global spread of urbanism.
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Date Issued: 2010
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3335105
Subject Headings: Urban folklore, Sex role in literature, Feminist theory, Legends
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: COLIN WILSON AND THE SEXUAL MYSTIQUE.
Creator: LEWIN, DOROTHY MAY., Florida Atlantic University, Pearce, Howard D.
Abstract/Description: Sexuality, for Colin Wilson, is a means for man to reexperience his godliness. Wilson's personal development went from a naive study of science, to nihilistic literature, and emerged as mystical wonder at the world itself. His view of sexuality paralleled his intellectual growth, as the alienated adolescent sought transcendent meaning in the disturbing pangs of puberty. The Bhagavad Gita was a major influence on Wilson, introducing sexuality in the East as a religious and scientific symbol of...
Show moreSexuality, for Colin Wilson, is a means for man to reexperience his godliness. Wilson's personal development went from a naive study of science, to nihilistic literature, and emerged as mystical wonder at the world itself. His view of sexuality paralleled his intellectual growth, as the alienated adolescent sought transcendent meaning in the disturbing pangs of puberty. The Bhagavad Gita was a major influence on Wilson, introducing sexuality in the East as a religious and scientific symbol of masculine and feminine universal principles striving to reunite. He was then able to resolve the inconsistencies between science, mysticism, and sexuality. Quantum theory of wave; particle duality, and the silent rhythms of the DNA code, are both reflected in the sexual act committed with transcendent consciousness. The one is simultaneously the many, in a cosmic dance in which it meets itself.
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Date Issued: 1983
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/14181
Subject Headings: Wilson, Colin,--1931---Criticism and interpretation, Sex in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The "outing" of Miss Jean Brodie or to Miss Christina Kay with love.
Creator: Geoghegan, Elizabeth Erin., Florida Atlantic University, McGuirk, Carol
Abstract/Description: Romantic friendships, or raves as they were commonly called, were a common element of the culture of girl's schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the impact of sexologists' theories served to pathologize and stigmatize these relationships. Muriel Spark was a product of the girl's school education in the post-Freudian era. While many scholars have studied The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for its spiritual or moral content, few have discussed the sexuality and lesbian...
Show moreRomantic friendships, or raves as they were commonly called, were a common element of the culture of girl's schools in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the impact of sexologists' theories served to pathologize and stigmatize these relationships. Muriel Spark was a product of the girl's school education in the post-Freudian era. While many scholars have studied The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie for its spiritual or moral content, few have discussed the sexuality and lesbian content in the novel. This thesis discusses the sexual dynamics of the two main characters, Jean Brodie and Sandy Stranger, while taking into account the social, psychological, and biographical influences on Spark's novel. Romantic friendship is a compelling force in the narrative which drives each character in their vacillation between loyalty and betrayal.
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Date Issued: 2001
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12792
Subject Headings: Spark, Muriel.--Prime of Miss Jean Brodie., Lesbianism in literature., Sex (Psychology) in literature.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Black woman as an erotic being in Spanish-Caribbean narrative.
Creator: Henry, Marlyn Fay., Florida Atlantic University, Erro-Peralta, Nora
Abstract/Description: Characterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying...
Show moreCharacterization of Black women as erotic beings in Spanish-Caribbean narrative has shifted significantly from 1880 to 1990. Their representation as totally submissive and erotic beings has evolved into that of socially conscious and self accepting Black women. In Villaverde's Cecilia Valdes (1882), Cecilia and Maria de la Regla are depicted as objects of male sexual desires. Diaz's Pascua in Cumboto (1948) and Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963), although eroticized, insinuate an underlying androgynous nature which makes them more assertive in their use of sexuality. However, it is contemporary women writers who dismantle the erotic stereotype: Ferre's "Cuando las mujeres quieren a los hombres" (1974) portrays a Black prostitute who, advances socially and economically. Cabrera's Nana in "La tesorera del diablo" (1971) is the bearer of ancestral knowledge and moral values, and Cartagena Portalatin's Aurora, in "La llamaban Aurora," (1978) speaks forcefully on social issues and fully accepts herself as a Black woman.
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Date Issued: 1994
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15115
Subject Headings: Latin American literature--History and criticism, Caribbean literature (Spanish), African American women in literature, Sex symbolism, Sex role in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Grendles Modor: Representation in a linguistic landscape.
Creator: Ciufo, Patience Corinne., Florida Atlantic University, Faraci, Mary
Abstract/Description: Beowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To...
Show moreBeowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To bring critics back to the poem, this study attempts to make the poem a landscape. When the total landscape, the language, style, alliteration, and violence (physical and emotional), is studied, the poem is opened up to more than just simple readings. In a landscape reading, Grendel's mother becomes a force strong enough to disrupt the structure of the language and to battle the barriers between female and male, warrior and monster, and pagan and nonpagan. A landscape that is as violent as the characters is discovered, one in which all life is celebrated.
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Date Issued: 1998
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15542
Subject Headings: Beowulf--Characters, English poetry--Old English, ca 450-1100--History and criticism, Stereotype (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Anti-Victorian attitudes in Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure".
Creator: Magrath-Singer, Jennifer Lara., Florida Atlantic University, Buckton, Oliver
Abstract/Description: Published in 1895, Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century, Victorian England experienced profound changes in its social structure. The writing of novels about oppressed women was popular in the late nineteenth century. As the narrative voice in Jude, Thomas Hardy sought to challenge the current conditions for women and men in society. His novel explores the reality of these conditions, and his characters, namely Sue Bridehead and Jude...
Show morePublished in 1895, Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century, Victorian England experienced profound changes in its social structure. The writing of novels about oppressed women was popular in the late nineteenth century. As the narrative voice in Jude, Thomas Hardy sought to challenge the current conditions for women and men in society. His novel explores the reality of these conditions, and his characters, namely Sue Bridehead and Jude Fawley, show readers what can happen when people are unable to adapt to the laws and conventions set forth by society.
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Date Issued: 2001
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12820
Subject Headings: Hardy, Thomas,--1840-1928--Jude the obscure, Hardy, Thomas,--1840-1928--Characters--Women, Sex role in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Oh, Fanny! What a deep voice you have: Masculinist narration in John Cleland's "Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure".
Creator: Cohen, Ilana., Florida Atlantic University, Anderson, David R.
Abstract/Description: John Cleland, author of Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, employs a female narrative voice, but his novel reinforces traditional gender roles of male domination and female submission. By co-opting his female narrator, Cleland makes Fanny appear to be a willing and available sexual partner. His pornographic novel depicts sexual situations that raise virile men to the position of authority and devalue both men and women who are submissive, not "masculine." The most devalued and...
Show moreJohn Cleland, author of Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, employs a female narrative voice, but his novel reinforces traditional gender roles of male domination and female submission. By co-opting his female narrator, Cleland makes Fanny appear to be a willing and available sexual partner. His pornographic novel depicts sexual situations that raise virile men to the position of authority and devalue both men and women who are submissive, not "masculine." The most devalued and objectified character in the novel is Fanny herself, even though the novel portrays her as happy and satisfied.
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Date Issued: 1997
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/15415
Subject Headings: Cleland, John,--1709-1789--Criticism and interpretation, Cleland, John,--1709-1789--Memoirs of a woman of pleasure, Point of view (Literature), Sex role in literature, Women in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A queer world: feminine subversions of chivalric homosocial normativity.
Creator: Pitts, Jessica., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: If queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex...
Show moreIf queer is an applicable label for that which aims to subvert or counteract normativity, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Wife of Bath's tale, and her Prologue are each, in their own ways, queer texts. I examine the ways in which the feminine presences of Morgan le Fay and the Loathly Lady influence and challenge the heteronormative, homosocial space of Arthur and his knights. The two knights in each respective tale journey away from their heteronormative spaces, in which a complex system of homosociality and chivalric patriarchy dominate, to a queer space where each must go against his societal norms and rely on feminine agency and talismans in order for their quests to succeed - and to ensure their survival. It is this very convergence of heteronormative and queer spaces that enables Morgan's defiance of heteronormativity and dominance over those who enter her feminine, non-normative domain.
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Date Issued: 2011
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3318679
Subject Headings: Characters, Wife of Bath, Feminism and literature, Gawain (Legendary character), Man-woman relationships in literature, Human body in literature, Symbolism in literature, Sex in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Hawthorne's play on gender and sexuality in "The Blithedale Romance".
Creator: Rubin, Brooke J., Florida Atlantic University, Blakemore, Steven
Abstract/Description: Feminist critics have primarily concentrated on the character of Zenobia, Nathaniel Hawthorne's premier feminist in The Blithedale Romance, to unravel Hawthorne's stance on the emergent sexual politics of the time. This thesis not only examines the importance of Zenobia but also analyzes the significance of Hawthorne's allusions to gender and sexuality constructs in terms of his other characters: Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Priscilla, Westervelt, and Moodie. In addition, I argue that Hawthorne...
Show moreFeminist critics have primarily concentrated on the character of Zenobia, Nathaniel Hawthorne's premier feminist in The Blithedale Romance, to unravel Hawthorne's stance on the emergent sexual politics of the time. This thesis not only examines the importance of Zenobia but also analyzes the significance of Hawthorne's allusions to gender and sexuality constructs in terms of his other characters: Coverdale, Hollingsworth, Priscilla, Westervelt, and Moodie. In addition, I argue that Hawthorne's purpose is to experiment with societal constructs of gender and sexuality among his central characters, a literary experiment that inadvertently subverts his ostensible traditional, patriarchal perspective. In essence, my reading aims to reorientate the conventional presuppositions and gender conventions that have dominated Hawthorne criticism for the past 150 years.
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Date Issued: 2006
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13353
Subject Headings: Hawthorne, Nathaniel,--1804-1864--Blithedale romance, Hawthorne, Nathaniel,--1804-1864--Political and social views, American fiction--19th century--Criticism and interpretation, Women in literature, Sex role in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: "One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!": twinship and doubling in Twelfth Night.
Creator: Puehn, Amanda M., Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Abstract/Description: This thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the...
Show moreThis thesis considers the relationship between scientific advances, identity formation, and literature in an early modern print culture. As medical theorists made their discoveries and defended their work they did so within the literary world; turning to the printed word to cultivate their personal identity and rebut dissenting colleagues. Subsequently, playwright William Shakespeare employed common medical knowledge within his plays. Twelfth Night presents male and female twins within the scope of a comedy that plays upon the issues of cross-dressing and mistaken sexual identity. During the Renaissance, it was believed that male and female seed was co-present in every person and through dominance a distinct sexual identity was developed. This thesis argues that while Shakespeare initially convoluted this by allowing one of the twins to cross-dress; he resolved the anatomical doubling by presenting both characters together on stage at the close of the play.
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Date Issued: 2010
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3335455
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Identity (Psychology) in literature, Sex role in literature, Literature and medicine, History
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: La identidad fronteriza a travâes de las experiencias generacionales en Sirena Selena vestida de pena.
Creator: Magdaleno, Ariana Heydi., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
Abstract/Description: Afro-Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres's novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) demonstrates the intrinsic social relationship that exists between generations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The historical similarity between these regions permits a comparison in life stories of marginalized peoples. Puerto Rican godmothers and transvestites Martha Divine and Valentina Frenesâi prepare goddaughter, quinceänera and bolerista Sirena Selena in her performance in order to launch a career...
Show moreAfro-Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres's novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) demonstrates the intrinsic social relationship that exists between generations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The historical similarity between these regions permits a comparison in life stories of marginalized peoples. Puerto Rican godmothers and transvestites Martha Divine and Valentina Frenesâi prepare goddaughter, quinceänera and bolerista Sirena Selena in her performance in order to launch a career and conquer the strategies of survival. Meanwhile, Dominican millionaire Hugo Graubel manages his life publicly as a heterosexual husband and privately as a gay man and strongly attempts to capture enigmatic Sirena Selena. Whereas the Dominican, pre-adolescent, poor, and mulatto Leocadio discovers the veiled world of tourism that offers alternate possibilities of economic survival. The previous generations' transgression of society's binary definitions created alternate spaces that continue to pave the way for future generations that will refuse and resist conforming to static patriarchal and heterosexual mainstream classifications.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/369190
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Identity in literature, Sex role in literature, Literature and society, Homosexuality and literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: The use of the bastard identity: from Victorian subverters to superheroes in the twenty-first century and beyond.
Creator: Dessler, Ryan., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This project explores the use if illegitimacy within Western discourse over the last three centuries. Illegitimacy was used in Victorian literature as a literary device to drive plot but evolved into a touchstone for Western discourse to explore the bounds of what is considered respectable society. Over time, as illegitimacy has become more mainstream, I contend illegitimate identities have been utilized to serve as a mirror for Western hegemony. In the first chapter, I explore the origins of...
Show moreThis project explores the use if illegitimacy within Western discourse over the last three centuries. Illegitimacy was used in Victorian literature as a literary device to drive plot but evolved into a touchstone for Western discourse to explore the bounds of what is considered respectable society. Over time, as illegitimacy has become more mainstream, I contend illegitimate identities have been utilized to serve as a mirror for Western hegemony. In the first chapter, I explore the origins of illegitimacy being used as a literary device in novels by Victorian authors Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. In the second chapter, I examine the role illegitimacy plays in the origin stories of canonical comic book superheroes Batman and Superman. Lastly, in the third chapter, I scrutinize the role illegitimacy plays in defining the human condition within science fiction as human culture continues to advance technologically towards a post human world.
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Date Issued: 2012
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/3355567
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Literature and society, History, Literature and society, History, Comic books, strips, etc, Criticism and interpretation, Illegitimacy in literature, Sex role in literature, Sensationalism in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Gender, Myth, and Warfare: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Women Warriors.
Creator: Boomer, Anne-Louise Lyttle, Brown, Susan Love, Florida Atlantic University, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Anthropology
Abstract/Description: A combination of cross-cultural and symbolic methodologies suggests that women warriors occur in societies where there is both an emphasis on the sacred feminine that allows women greater access to positions of power and authority (as per Peggy Sanday) and where marital residency rules permit female fighters (following David B. Adams´s theory on women warriors). While neither theory can stand alone in explaining the existence of women warriors, when combined both theories give a solid picture...
Show moreA combination of cross-cultural and symbolic methodologies suggests that women warriors occur in societies where there is both an emphasis on the sacred feminine that allows women greater access to positions of power and authority (as per Peggy Sanday) and where marital residency rules permit female fighters (following David B. Adams´s theory on women warriors). While neither theory can stand alone in explaining the existence of women warriors, when combined both theories give a solid picture of societies that allow for female combatants. In this paper I propose that by combining Sanday’s work on female power and Adams’s work on women warriors we can come to a better understanding about just what makes the cultures that allow for women’s participation in warfare unique, and perhaps what characteristics must be in place in order for a culture to have women warriors.
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Date Issued: 2016
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004571, http://purl.flvc.org/fau/fd/FA00004571
Subject Headings: Sanday, Peggy Reeves.--Female power and male dominance--Criticism and interpretation., Adams, David B.--Why there are so few women warriors--Criticism and interpretation., Feminism in literature., Sex (Psychology)--Cross-cultural studies., Symbolism (Psychology)--Cross-cultural studies.
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Power politics: gender and power in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name.
Creator: Smith, Rebecca Ann., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: While literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the...
Show moreWhile literary critics acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret and Wilkie Collins's No Name as sensation novels that were considered popular literature during the 1860s, many critics often fail to recognize the social and political implications embedded within these texts. In No Name, for instance, Collins's use of a heroine that is disinherited and deemed illegitimate by the law emphasizes the overpowering force of patriarchy. In response to patriarchal law, therefore, the heroines of Lady Audley's Secret and No Name attempt to improve their social positions in a society that is economically dependent upon men. Braddon's Lady Audley and Collins's Magdalen Vanstone are fictional representations of women who internalize the inequality of patriarchy and strive to contest male domination. By centering their novels on heroines who endeavor to defy Victorian social norms, Braddon and Collins highlight the problem of the female in a male-dominated society.
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Date Issued: 2009
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/210519
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, English fiction, Criticism and interpretation, Literature and society, Sex role in literature, Patriarchy in literature
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: Gender and the abject in the symbolic landscapes of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm.
Creator: McAdams, Janine., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: The literature of the fin de siáecle challenged established societal norms through its use of avant-garde literary forms and controversial subject matter. This study will examine the use of landscape metaphors in two major works of fin de siáecle literature, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, in order to reveal how these texts critique and re-vision the social dualities of gender. A wide range of literary...
Show moreThe literature of the fin de siáecle challenged established societal norms through its use of avant-garde literary forms and controversial subject matter. This study will examine the use of landscape metaphors in two major works of fin de siáecle literature, Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, in order to reveal how these texts critique and re-vision the social dualities of gender. A wide range of literary theories-including, feminist theory, semiotics, and ecocriticism-are used to interpret these authors' influential narratives. This thesis will also apply Julia Kristeva's theory of the abjects-representing the permeability of the physical and social bodies-to critically examine the literal and metaphorical landscapes of Stevenson's city and Schreiner's farm. Thus, these visionary texts embody an organic and feminist understanding of the self as a permeable social construct that exists free of borders.
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Date Issued: 2010
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2683128
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Symbolism in literature, Sex role in literature, Semantics (Philosophy), Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A dark, uncertain fate: homophobia, graphic novels, and queer identity.
Creator: Buso, Michael., Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of English
Abstract/Description: This thesis focuses primarily on homophobia and how it plays a role in the construction of queer identities, specifically in graphic novels and comic books. The primary texts being analyzed are Alan Moore's Lost Girls, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Michael Chabon's prose novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Throughout these and many other comics, queer identities reflect homophobic stereotypes rather than resisting them. However, this thesis argues that,...
Show moreThis thesis focuses primarily on homophobia and how it plays a role in the construction of queer identities, specifically in graphic novels and comic books. The primary texts being analyzed are Alan Moore's Lost Girls, Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Michael Chabon's prose novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Throughout these and many other comics, queer identities reflect homophobic stereotypes rather than resisting them. However, this thesis argues that, despite the homophobic tendencies of these texts, the very nature of comics (their visual aspects, panel structures, and blank gutters) allows for an alternative space for positive queer identities.
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Date Issued: 2010
PURL: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/2100584
Subject Headings: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Criticism and interpretation, Sex in literature, Homophobia, Gender identity, Comic books, strips, etc, History and criticism
Format: Document (PDF)

FAU Theses and Dissertations (16)	+ -
Honors Student Theses (2)	+ -

Sex role in literature (11)	+ -
Criticism and interpretation (6)	+ -
Literature and society (3)	+ -
Sex in literature (3)	+ -
Symbolism in literature (3)	+ -

Women in literature (3)	+ -
Comic books, strips, etc (2)	+ -
History (2)	+ -
Sex symbolism (2)	+ -
Adams, David B.--Why there are so few women warriors--Criticism and interpretation. (1)	+ -
African American women in literature (1)	+ -
American fiction--19th century--Criticism and interpretation (1)	+ -
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