<p>The poem <i>B&emacr;owulf</i> has been translated hundreds of times, in part or in whole. In past decades translators such as Howell Chickering and E. Talbot Donaldson firmly adhered to formal equivalency, following the original text line-by-line if not word-by-word. Such translations are useful for Anglo-Saxon students but cannot reach a larger audience because they are unwieldy and often incomprehensible. In the past fifty years, though, a group of translators with different philosophies has taken up the task of translating the poem with greater success. Translators such as Marc Hudson, Edwin Morgan, and Seamus Heaney used dynamic equivalency for their versions, eschewing strict grammatical accuracy and literal diction in order to recreate the sense and experience of the poem for a modern audience. How two translators, E. Talbot Donaldson and Seamus Heaney, treat the queens in the poem as revealed by a close textual analysis proves to be an excellent example of the two methodologies; formal equivalence translators do not endow their female characters with the agency and respect present in the original text, while dynamic equivalence translators take liberties with the language to give their readers a strong sense of the powerful but tragic queen figures. Harold Bloom&rsquo;s theory of the development of poets in <i>The Anxiety of Influence</i> can help explain this shift from formal equivalency to dynamic equivalency. Translators of <i>B&emacr;owulf</i> necessarily react against their predecessors, and since translators usually explain their process and philosophy in forwards or introductions, their motivations for &ldquo;swerving away&rdquo; are clear. Formal equivalence translators misrepresented the original text by devaluing the literary merit of the original poem and dynamic equivalence translators seek to remedy the misrepresentation by elaborating and expanding the language of the original to reach a wider audience. Each generation must continue to translate against the grain of its predecessors in order to keep the poem alive for a larger audience so that the poem will continue to be enjoyed by future audiences. </p>

<p> This thesis examines the striking disconnect between the extensive power wielded by women in medieval Cairo and the 'official' constructions of gender relationships articulated by the 'ulama'. The formal discourses produced by legal-religious scholars encouraged men to monitor, correct, and chastise women in order to limit the chaotic and destructive potential innately present in female bodies and feminine activities. However, the larger population, including the very members of the 'ulama' who constructed these narratives of patriarchy, consistently undermined these beliefs in their daily practices. The tensions produced between patriarchal ideals and the relatively egalitarian reality of gender relationships in medieval Cairene culture were especially visible in the ruling class. While royal women actively shaped the popular image of the Mamluk sultanate and participated in extending its power throughout the city, their abilities to engage in statecraft from formal and official positions of authority were restricted by their culture's constructions of gender. However, rather than being oppressed by these limitations, Mamluk women created a unique sphere of power from which they exercised enormous influence on the epistemological framework of their society, especially through the establishment of <i>awq&amacr;f</i> (perpetual charitable endowments). </p><p> In the following analysis, I demonstrate how royal women utilized the locations and functions of these foundations to emphasize cultural norms that linked the female population of Cairo to the spaces of death and remembrance in the city's cemeteries. Underscoring their membership in two distinct bases of power&mdash;the ruling class and women in general&mdash;female founders utilized their <i>awq&amacr;f</i>to cultivate interpersonal relationships with the women of Cairo and to strengthen the Mamluks' hegemonic framework through the appropriation of female concepts of piety. By focusing their architectural and charitable patronage on the female population of the city, royal women also helped reinforce the spaces central to female expressions of piety and participation in the production of knowledge.</p>

<p> This thesis explores Julia Ward Howe's unfinished manuscript, <i> The Hermaphrodite</i> (2004). In order to establish a foundation, this thesis begins by approaching <i>The Hermaphrodite</i> through lenses that connect to Howe's life and times. The biographical, feminist, and gothic approaches analyze the effects of personal conflicts, gender concerns, and setting nuances on the manuscript. The analysis of previous treatment of hermaphrodites provides background on ambiguous protagonists. Ultimately, this thesis expands upon and diverges from preceding scholarship, and it establishes a new perspective through which to view the hermaphroditic protagonist, Laurence. This thesis argues that Howe's Laurence can be read as are-visioned Christ figure. His/her physical description is strikingly reminiscent of the accounts of Jesus's appearance. Both Jesus and Laurence are entwined with pious symbols. Laurence is intrinsically connected to the purity of the cross. Most importantly, Laurence and Jesus both gallantly endure burdens and selflessly sacrifice themselves for others while transiently inhabiting earth before returning to heaven. Laurence is an unexpected and reinvented savior.</p>

<p> This quantitative study used descriptive statistics to evaluate data obtained from 179 middle grade teachers, grades 5-9, currently working in a single-gender environment, including public, private, and charter schools, with regard to the academic and behavioral benefits of single-gender education. The study used a survey created by Dr. John Fry in 2009 for his doctoral dissertation, <i> Single-Gender Education: Teachers' Perspective,</i> and sought to confirm or refute his conclusions regarding the efficacy of single-gender education as recommended in his section for future research. The results of this study confirm his conclusions and indicate the teachers have positive perceptions regarding single-gender education, particularly in relation to academic achievement and behavioral change.</p>

<p> The following dissertation is an historical archaeological study of the material culture of gendered protective magic used by Anglo-Europeans in seventeenth-century New England as a tactic to construct boundaries that mitigated perceived personal, social, spiritual, and environmental dangers. Such boundary construction was paramount in the seventeenth-century battle between good and evil epitomized by the belief in and struggle against witchcraft. This dissertation sought to answer three interrelated research questions: 1) What constitutes protective magical material culture in seventeenth-century contexts and how is it recognizable in the archaeological record? 2) What signifies gender specific protective magical practices and what can these differences relate about gender roles, identity, and social relationships? and 3) In what way and to what degree is the recourse to traditional beliefs significant in coping or risk management contexts? Synthesizing data from historical and folkloristic sources, and reviewing all accessible archaeological site reports and inventories from State Historic Preservation offices and principal site investigators for domestic structures in New England ca. 1620-1725 provided data to catalog and develop a typology of potential magical items. Analyzing these data then allowed the assessment of domestic and gendered patterns of magical risk management strategies. Magical content was frequently embedded within or symbolically encoded in architectural or artifactual details, whose gendered association tended to correspond with gender role activities or responsibilities; however, the general omission of magical interpretations in historical archaeology limits the visibility of potentially magical objects in site reports and inventories, so it is likely a wider range of materials and contexts exist. The final result of this dissertation was the construction of a criterion model for the identification and interpretation of magic in historical archaeological contexts, which extends the notion of ritual from specialized places and materials, and communal behaviors to include quotidian objects and settings, and individual practices. Ultimately, the results of this dissertation extend the field of the archaeology of ritual and magic in particular, and the broader field of archaeology more generally by providing theoretical and methodological tools for understanding and recognizing how magical belief contributes to physical and metaphoric boundary construction and maintenance.</p>

<p> This study traces the history of birth control and reproductive politics in the West Indies from the 1930s to the 1970s, focusing on Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Bermuda. During this period, a diverse group of activists began to organize in order to spread modern contraceptives to the working classes. These efforts provoked widespread debate over reproduction and led to the opening of the region's first birth control clinics from the 1930s to 1950s. Birth control advocates also pressured politicians to support the cause, and by the late 1960s/early 1970s nearly every newly-independent government in the region had committed itself to state-funded family planning services. </p><p> Utilizing papers of family planning advocates and associations, government records, newspapers, pamphlets, and reports, this study places these birth control campaigns and debates within the context of Caribbean political and social movements, the rise of the international birth control campaign, working class family life and gender relations, the decline of British rule, and the expansion of political independence across the region. It demonstrates that &mdash; as argued by much of the scholarly literature on the international birth control movement &mdash; early campaigns in the West Indies were initiated and funded largely by local and foreign (white) elites, and were pushed by many conservative actors who blamed political and economic instability on working class (black) fertility as a means to stave off wider reforms. However, this study also shows that the birth control cause found support among a much wider demographic on these islands, including anti-imperial politicians who incorporated birth control into broader development plans, doctors, nurses, and social workers who saw it as a critical measure to aid working class families, black nationalist feminists who argued that it was a woman's right, and working class women and men who seized the opportunity to exercise a measure of control over their reproductive lives. These actors shaped both reproductive politics and the delivery of birth control services on the ground over the course of the twentieth century, producing campaigns that were more diverse, decentralized, and dynamic than they appear on the surface.</p>

<p> Participants were presented an impossible or moderately difficult mental addition task; half of them were led to believe that they could win a traditionally masculine incentive by meeting a certain performance standard and half of them were led to believe that they could win a traditionally feminine incentive if they met the same performance standard. In the feminine incentive group, Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) during the work period was stronger under difficult than impossible conditions among women, but low under both difficulty conditions among men. In the masculine incentive group, blood pressure measures (SBP, diastolic blood pressure, and mean arterial pressure) were higher in the moderately difficult condition than in the impossible condition, regardless of gender. Findings support a conceptual analysis based on motivation intensity theory which suggests that gender differences in cardiovascular response could be partially understood in terms of effort processes that occur where men and women place different value on available performance incentives. </p>

<p> Similar to staffing patterns in public school systems, the majority of faculty employed in the 1,174 National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) member schools are women, suggesting that school leadership pipelines are filled with female faculty, along with middle- and senior-level administrators who demonstrate daily their executive leadership capacity. Yet women remain unable to achieve access to head of school leadership positions at a rate equal to their male colleagues. Utilizing qualitative research methods and the lens of post-structuralist feminist theory, this phenomenological study examines the gendered nature of leadership roles in independent schools and the ways this cultural phenomenon informs the strategies used by African American and White women seeking mentor-prot&eacute;g&eacute; relationships, networks of support, and sponsorship from "recognized" independent school leaders. Utilizing a feminist framework to examine the cultural context that informs women's leadership preparation (Olesen, 1994, 2003), semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 participants whose lived experience as independent school leaders and/or as executive search consultants for independent schools illuminated points of tension between settled and unsettled periods in the lives of aspiring women leaders and explored the strategies of action (Swindler, 1986) used to negotiate points of discursive disjunction (Chase, 1995, 2003). This study contributes to the present discourse regarding the role gender plays in the normalization of independent school leadership, proposes questions for further inquiry, and suggests strategies of action for independent school communities, trustees, and professional organizations to use when crafting policy, planning leadership training/development, and succession planning that addresses gender disproportionality.</p>

<p> This quantitative investigation focused on women high school principals at Jewish secular schools throughout Israel. Despite challenges, Israeli women have succeeded in obtaining over half of the principal positions at Jewish secular high schools, but the degree to which there is equal gender access to leadership roles in the school system remains unclear. This study examined whether there was clustering of women in high school principal positions in certain geographical areas, the process by which these women obtained principal positions, what obstacles the women overcame, and an analysis if respondents differed by district in terms of their career paths, career breaks, and military experiences. This study showed that although women are in principal positions in equal or greater numbers as men depending on the region, women had a different path than men to obtain this role. The key findings in this research were that 89.5% of women principals were able to return at the same level prior to taking a career break and that 31.8% of female principals had male mentors. </p>

<p> What can the experiences of queer medical students tell us about the existence of homophobia and heteronormativity in medical environments? This thesis focuses on the experiences of queer medical students and physicians as they are enculturated into biomedical theory and practice. I begin by laying out the historical and theoretical trends in the study of sex/gender and sexuality, with a particular focus on how these trends have affected the anthropological study of sex/gender and sexuality. Next, I review the literature on queer health and medical education in order to situate the results of the research within the broader medical education and queer health disparities literatures. After detailing the methods used to gather and analyze the data that makes up this thesis, I explore my informants' experiences with their medical education and training with particular focus on medical case studies as an example of the ways that heteronormativity becomes internalized by informants in medical environments. Next, I examine the interaction between my informants' ideas about (in)visibility in medical environments, and I introduce the concept of the irrelevance narrative as a means of making sense of how informants view the role of their queerness in their practice of medicine. I conclude with a discussion of the limitations of this research and provide a list of best practices for medical education, training, and practice on queer health issues informed by the literature and my discussions with informants. </p>