<p> Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (FGCS) is a burgeoning area of developing cosmetic surgery in the U.S., Britain, and Australia. Hotly debated, the procedure is caught up in cultural discourses of medicalization, on the one hand (arguing for the necessity of such procedures to correct a &ldquo;defect&rdquo; in female anatomy), and, on the other, condemnations of the practice as yet another market invention to capitalize on women&rsquo;s traditional anxieties regarding beauty, especially with regard to genital anatomy. This dissertation situates FGCS historically and culturally within practices of neoliberal capitalism, new surgical technologies, changes in U.S. healthcare systems, increased bodily surveillance and advances in media technology, and a tradition of the development and use of standardized systems of classification within practices of Western medicine. It then illustrates how these factors work in concert to produce &ldquo;defective&rdquo; bodies and the technologies marketed as necessary to fix them.</p><p>

<p> The Brothers Grimm and the Walt Disney Company have produced popular fairy tales for large audiences. In this work, cluster criticism&mdash;a rhetorical criticism that involves identifying key terms and charting word clusters around those terms&mdash;is applied to four Grimm fairy tales and four Disney princess films. This study aims to reveal the worldview of the rhetors and explore how values present in Grimm tales manifest in contemporary Disney films. Disney princess films in this study have been categorized as &ldquo;White/European&rdquo; and &ldquo;Non-White/Cultural &lsquo;Other.&rsquo;&rdquo; Because film is a form of non-discursive rhetoric, an adaptation of cluster criticism designed for film was been applied to the selected animated features. This study reveals that many patriarchal values present in Grimm fairy tales appear in contemporary Disney films, and while Moana (2016) features far fewer displays of these values, intersectional feminism should be kept in mind, with more diversity in princesses needed.</p><p>

<p> This project analyzes historical trauma, the dominant fiction, and male subjectivity as theorized by Kaja Silverman in selected Kurt Vonnegut novels. </p><p> Chapter one examines Billy Pilgrim, the focal character of <i>Slaughterhouse-Five </i>, as well as Vonnegut-as-narrator by analyzing the way these two men exhibit Kaja Silverman&rsquo;s notions of historical trauma, characterized by their failures to embody proper hegemonic masculinity as exhibited in popular culture and the dominant fiction. Despite Billy&rsquo;s comically absurd failures as a soldier and a civilian man, he survives the war and lives a financially successful civilian life, though he&rsquo;s seen by nearly all as a laughingstock of a man. Billy is a male subject whose very existence calls into question the penis/phallus equation: the symbolically and psychoanalytically significant linkage of the male sex organ with the signifier of sexual difference and, perhaps more importantly, power. His survival refuses to endorse the violent assumption that war turns boys into men, a belief in the regenerative properties of violence, a popular American mythology, especially during the WWII and Vietnam war eras. </p><p> In chapter two, I examine John, the protagonist of <i>Cat&rsquo;s Cradle</i>. While John does not experience combat traumas as Billy and Vonnegut-as-narrator do, John experiences a loss of belief in society&rsquo;s organizing principles and narratives, in turn causing him to doubt his own power as a male subject. </p><p> Chapter three details Howard W. Campbell, Jr., of <i>Mother Night </i>, a former Nazi propagandist awaiting trial for war crimes. Campbell&rsquo;s character is Vonnegut&rsquo;s attempt to work through Hanna Arendt&rsquo;s concept of the banality of evil, while also dealing with the loss of social and phallic power. As Campbell loses everything he once found joy in during his life as a Nazi, he also loses his belief in the commensurability of the penis and the phallus, unable to exist as the man he once was. </p><p> While my selections of Vonnegut&rsquo;s texts all delve into World War II either explicitly or at the margins, I argue that Vonnegut is primarily concerned with the events of the 1960s, the decade in which <i>Slaughterhouse-Five </i>, <i>Cat&rsquo;s Cradle</i>, and <i>Mother Night</i> were published. All of these characters&rsquo; experiences are analogous to several cultural anxieties of the American 1960s: the Eichmann trial, the Vietnam war, the spread of communism, the Cuban missile crisis, and changing notions of acceptable masculinity. As such, I hope to establish that the penis/phallus equation upon which our society&rsquo;s reality is maintained is continually in danger of rupture, though through cultural binding, the equation and its organizing principles continue to shape male subjectivity and American culture as a whole.</p><p>

<p> This study sought to unearth the narratives of gender nonconforming (GNC) individuals&rsquo; experiences of mental health services. The term gender nonconforming refers to individuals who do not identify with a strictly male or female concept of gender identity. There is an insubstantial research that has been conducted into the provision of effective mental health services for gender nonconforming individuals. Most of the studies in the literature review used the term transgender to highlight gender minority experience of counseling. </p><p> This study used gender nonconforming to separate from this terminology confusion. Individuals who identify with the identity label of transgender can be gender nonconforming, but not always is this the case due to the varied individual meanings of these terminology. In order to uncover the narrative of the target population, the participants of the study were purposefully selected to include only those who hold a nonbinary definition of their gender identity. This hermeneutic phenomenological study was informed by Queery theory and Hycner&rsquo;s (1985) guidelines to phenomenological research. The study was conducted with a total of nine interviews who identified with the study&rsquo;s definition of gender nonconforming. The results of the study identified themes that address the participants queer identity development, internal and external barriers for therapy, and factors that promoted positive and negative experiences of counseling. The limitations, implications of the study, suggestions for future research, and questions for future research are included.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation is an ethnography of trans identity and North American music and explores the ways musicking makes viable underrepresented forms of embodiment. The subjects of this ethnomusicological study&mdash;Jennifer Leitham, Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, Transcendence Gospel Choir, and Joe Stevens&mdash;are contemporary musicians who are trans identified. Contemplating the multiple facets of identity embodied by these individuals and groups, I consider relationships among their subjectivities, identities, bodies and behaviors, and interactions with others, and how those relationships are explored, affirmed, celebrated, judged, contested, and valued (or not) through their music and musical performances. An ethnomusicological approach allows the performances and narratives of these artists to show multiple levels and intersections of identity in relation to gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, religion, age, and disability. The dissertation draws from interviews, performances, and onsite fieldwork in and around Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area between 2009 and 2016. Ethnographic data include interviews with artists and audience members as well as live performances, rehearsals, recordings, videos, and social networks. Jennifer Leitham challenges an association of gender and sexual identity in jazz while simultaneously finding it a difficult category of music to navigate when her trans identity is foregrounded. For some of the vocalists in the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles and the Transcendence Gospel Choir of San Francisco subjectivity, identity, and embodiment are connected to ideas about voices, bodies, and behaviors and these attributes are highly variable. For example, whether singers are attempting to extend their range, grapple with the effects of androgen hormones, or both, their voices, like all singers&rsquo; voices, are in process. Joe Stevens&rsquo;s musical life presents us with particular ways in which trans subjects harness musical genre in order to perform trans identities. Genre, voice, embodiment, and transition all contribute to the ways in which masculinity and vulnerability frame Joe&rsquo;s identity, and they are juxtaposed with his female gender assignment at birth. The project ultimately concludes that sharing musical performances of trans identity requires a thinking through of bodies and behaviors, where gender identity as multiplicitous, varied, and diverse, is always in relation, contention, or collusion with socio-political and cultural forces that control those bodies and behaviors. Musicking provides a strategic arena where trans subjectivities and identities flourish.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation investigated if the implementation of six different female-oriented teaching strategies had an effect on the attitude of middle school female science students. Female-oriented teaching strategies included single-sex groupings, student-teacher interactions, introduction of female role models, guided-inquiry teaching pedagogy, demonstration of real world relevance of science, and the implementation of more technology into science lessons.</p><p> Quantitative data was collected by an initial and final administration of an attitude survey. The survey consisted of 48 Likert-type questions and was separated into six attitude domains (perception of the science teacher, anxiety, self-concept, value, enjoyment and motivation). Qualitative data was obtained through student journaling and interviews. A two-tailed, paired t-test was run on the qualitative data to gauge a degree of change in attitude, while deductive coding methods were used to gain female students&rsquo; viewpoints of the strategies implemented.</p><p> The implementation of four of the six female-oriented teaching strategies had a positive effect on the female students&rsquo; attitude toward science. These strategies included grouping students in single-sex pairings, using guided-inquiry lessons, showing students the relevancy of science, and introducing female students to historical and current women in science.</p><p>

abstract: This dissertation examines the history of urban nightlife in New York City and San Francisco from 1890 to 1930 and charts the manifestation of modernity within these cities. While some urbanites tepidly embraced this new modern world, others resisted. Chafing at this seemingly unmoored world, some Americans fretted about one of the most visible effects of modernity on the city—the encroachment of sex onto the street and in commercial amusements—and sought to wield the power of the state to suppress it. Even those Americans who reveled in the new modern world grappled with what this shifting culture ultimately meant for their lives, seeking familiarity where they could find it. Thus, this dissertation details how both Americans who embraced the modern world and those who perceived it as a threatening menace similarly sought a mediated modernity, seeking out and organizing spaces within modern amusements that ultimately reinforced existing cultural hierarchies. Using the lens of spatial analysis, this dissertation examines how different groups of Americans used the spaces of nighttime amusement to interrogate how nightlife culture reflected and reinforced dynamics of power in a historical moment when social movements seemed to be upending existing power structures of race, class, and gender. Pioneering works in the field of the history of popular amusements tend to frame the experience of commercial amusements—and by extension modern life—as a liberating force lifting Americans from the staid traditions of the nineteenth century. But this dissertation charts the way Americans sought to moderate the effects of modern life, even as they delighted in it. Even as the modern world seemed on the cusp of overturning social hierarchy, Americans found comfort in amusements that structured space to reaffirm the status quo; while so much of the modern world appeared to break with the past, existing structures of social power remained very much the same. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2018

<p> This research study evaluated the modified gap analysis of knowledge and skills, motivation, and organization on how low socioeconomic status (SES) Black male students who were exposed to community violence and participated in Our Kids, a pseudonym for a non-profit community based organization that provides extracurricular programs to at-risk males. The purpose of this study is to understand how the in-school violent behavior of low SES Black males affects these students&rsquo; abilities to realize future goals. Using the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis, the collection of data from interviews and documents identified and validated the source of the students&rsquo; performance gaps. Findings revealed that the urban school district had positive and negative aspects in its current program that addressed students&rsquo; in-school violent behavior. Overall, the findings exposed that the students in the study had procedural knowledge, knowledge of self-regulation and support their increase in knowledge of self-identity even though the documents exposed that Black male students may lack self-regulation. The students had self-efficacy and students&rsquo; emotions influence their motivation. The students believe that there is racial equities and opportunities to build trusting relationships but urban school district created a threatening environment. Yet, the documents show racial inequities. This research study recommends research-based solutions to assist organizations in decreasing in-school violent behavior. Finally, Our Kids can utilize the modified gap analysis model to identify and validate causes of performance gaps and recommend solutions.</p><p>

<p> Prevention is key to keeping men who have sex with men (MSM) protected from Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Despite new and innovative HIV prevention resources such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), factors such as education level, employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources may inhibit certain populations from using PrEP. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association between education level, employment status, number of sexual partners, and access to health resources and the use of PrEP among MSM. The fundamental cause theory was used to examine how socioeconomic barriers are associated with the use of PrEP among MSM in the United States. Secondary data from 217 surveys were collected from the Public Library of Science. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicated that employment status, access to health resources, and number of sexual partners were not associated with use of PrEP among MSM. Those who had at least some high school or a high school diploma were 3.98 times more likely to be likely to extremely likely to use PrEP, compared to those who had less than a high school education (<i>OR</i> = 3.98, <i> p</i> = .048). Those who had some college were 6.91 more likely to be likely to extremely likely to use PrEP, compared to those who had less than a high school education (<i>OR</i> = 6.91, <i>p</i> = .028). Findings may be used to assist public health professionals in identifying factors that prevent the use of PrEP. By addressing these health threats, and social barriers, specialists could have the ability to increase HIV prevention activity in populations that are more susceptible to being infected with HIV and may decrease HIV infections not only within the MSM population but also in other populations.</p><p>

<p>To understand the life-course narratives of women who leave the California prison system, life history interviews were used. The focus was on how they perceive their identities and how their life trajectories have been influenced by social institutions (i.e., family and education). Reform to California penal policy is recommended based on the experiences discussed in the interviews. It is thus proposed, based on the narratives, that policy be community-oriented for effective prevention, intervention, and reintegration programming and strategies. While reform is needed within government, it must largely come from within communities in which crime and trauma have been normalized. Part of the process is changing the way in which communities are defined as ?ghetto? or ?crime-ridden? and how such definition influences women?s lives. To change how women in this study are defined socially and legally, public perception of them has to expand beyond the lens of crime and conviction.