Project (D. Min.)--Iliff School of Theology, 2008. / Includes abstract. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-133).

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Svi Shapiro; submitted to the Dept. of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jun. 7, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 228-244).

Over the years, an increasing number of scholars have argued that a "coming out imperative" characterizes Western society, urging those who harbor hidden identities to make those identities visible for the greater good. A number of sources repeatedly remind queer-identified individuals, for example, that coming out of the closet results in crucial visibility that, among other things, can help lead to political advances for the GLBTQ community. Yet, the call to make the invisible visible also valorizes the gender and sexual binary system that queer theory seeks to dismantle. How might we view the closet--a location that we find ourselves in repeatedly over time, regardless of any and all coming out events--in queer terms? How might we queer common conceptualizations of its construction and its utility? While he does not technically identify as gay, the popular culture stalwart known as Superman provides a useful exemplar for engaging in such a task. Since his first appearance in the pages of comic books more than seventy years ago, consumers and critics have continually inscribed Superman with meanings other than those presumably intended by his authors, thus attesting to the figure's polysemy. These subtextual layers enable consumers to recognize aspects of his texts that they find especially salient, including cues that speak to queer experiences. For example, because Superman's identity is in constant flux, with Superman always masking Clark Kent and vice versa, queer audiences may view Superman as especially relatable given their own experiences with a sexual- and gender-based closet. Superman does not adhere to the "coming out imperative," though, since he constantly relies on his closet in order to perform his super-job efficiently and effectively. His narrative, by its very nature, valorizes some measure of invisibility as a viable approach to managing a life with difference, however super or terrestrial that difference may be. This project analyzes four Superman texts--the television series Smallville, the motion picture Superman Returns, and the animated films Superman: Brainiac Attacks! and Superman: Doomsday--to ponder a closet that may offer opportunity rather than blanket oppression. Through his own identity negotiation, Superman struggles with his difference in ways that are similar to his queer human counterparts, and his eventual embrace of that identity, costume and all, suggests that he achieves some measure of pride in that difference. Yet, his closet remains intact. He may not always appreciate its limitations, but he understands the opportunities it bestows, and I believe we can learn from him. In other words, rampant heteronormativity and heterosexist presumption ensure that we must live with our queer closets everyday. This project seeks to reclaim that space for its practical and critical utility.

Submitted by Patrícia Conceição da Silva (patriciaconceicao@gmail.com) on 2013-08-19T20:41:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_PatriciaConceicao.pdf: 5058813 bytes, checksum: 115e1b156ba58cea06bb6950d0c50096 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alda Lima da Silva(sivalda@ufba.br) on 2013-08-20T21:09:47Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_PatriciaConceicao.pdf: 5058813 bytes, checksum: 115e1b156ba58cea06bb6950d0c50096 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-08-20T21:09:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao_PatriciaConceicao.pdf: 5058813 bytes, checksum: 115e1b156ba58cea06bb6950d0c50096 (MD5) / Este trabalho analisa textos publicados por duas revistas brasileiras voltadas para adolescentes – Atrevida e Capricho - que tratam de temas relacionados a gênero e sexualidade. O intuito é compreender de que forma as revistas constroem as identidades sexuais de suas leitoras e, ainda, quais normas regulatórias dos corpos, desejos e comportamentos sexuais estão presentes nessas publicações. Para refletir até que ponto as abordagens sobre gênero e sexualidade estão inscritas numa perspectiva heteronormativa, as edições do ano de 2008 das duas revistas foram analisadas a partir de algumas reflexões fundamentais na Teoria Queer e de demais trabalhos inscritos nos chamados Estudos Gays e Lésbicos. Por meio da análise de quatro aspectos principais - as concepções de sexo, gênero, desejo e prática sexual nas revistas; a trajetória de vida construída para as adolescentes nas publicações; a construção e a legitimação do casal heterossexual em suas páginas; os ideais de corpo, aparência e vestuário – foi possível refletir sobre como a heterossexualidade atua como norma pela qual passa a própria constituição do “ser menina”. Os resultados da análise apontam os caminhos pelos quais as diversas normas regulatórias são abordadas e reforçadas nas publicações e, ainda, problematizam se a atuação dessas normas permite o surgimento de lacunas que funcionam como espaços de fuga do padrão heterossexual.

Our social world is increasingly chaotic. Perhaps there has always been chaos; but our increasingly globalized landscape and information economy seems to place chaos on the frontlines—as videos of military strikes in Iraq, or mundane narratives about making it through another day are available for consumption at any time. Our social world produces. The question: What to do with it all? This dissertation explores the concept of affect, using a collage methodology. To conduct an exploration of affect, which “transpires within and across the subtlest of shuttling intensities” (Seigworth and Gregg 2), this dissertation both explores and performs collage; taking collage as both an artifact for investigation using affect theory, as well as a methodological approach participating in the creation of affect theory. As a result of this commitment, the reader is invited to enter this document in any order they wish—reading directly through, or skipping around chapters as it suits them. As a method, collage operates through placing at least two different things next to each other, and then looking for similarities and differences. Each chapter explores differences by juxtaposing artifacts selected because of a similarity that they shared. Spatial (Harvey Butchart and the Havasupai Native Americans), methodological (the It Gets Better project and Ray Johnson), temporal (September 11, 2001 and September 11, 1973), or praxis-based (Chelsea Manning and Aaron Swartz) similarities guided the juxtaposition of artifacts within each chapter. In addition, each chapter explores a distinct version of affect theory to add to the collage created within and throughout this dissertation. Each chapter is a canyon, collected within the grand canyon of the dissertation as a whole. Ultimately, this dissertation is guided by both academic and artistic impulses. I seek to explore and produce affect theory through deploying the methodology of collage. Drawn to moments that often escape rational interrogation, this dissertation invokes echoes as evidence in order to mobilize a system of resonance through juxtaposition that realizes the power of collage: Establishing interpretive frames that refuse to be finished or fixed. Through the performance of collage methodology, this dissertation seeks to implicitly argue for rhizomatic knowledge systems as a method of resistance to structures of oppression via an aesthetic mobilization of collage.

O emergir deste novo século traz consigo mudanças significativas nas estruturas sociais, políticas e econômicas. Especificamente na esfera social, assistimos a reconfiguração dos modelos familiares, antes presos a estrutura patriarcal e nuclear, e hoje abertos a inúmeras possibilidades, dentre as quais os casais homossexuais. As discussões acerca dessas relações têm ganhado fôlego e visibilidade e seus debates transitam entre o campo político, jurídico, religioso, moral e científico. Observa-se uma relativa tendência dentro da academia e da prática psicológica de buscar uma postura não estigmatizante e preconceituosa. Em contrapartida, a literatura científica que trata do tema é escassa e os estudos nacionais são ainda mais raros. Neste sentido, este estudo qualitativo teve como objetivo conhecer de maneira aprofundada a experiência conjugal de casais homossexuais à luz das transformações da intimidade na contemporaneidade. Acredita-se que tal conhecimento pode oferecer subsídios para o planejamento e execução de intervenções psicológicas que considerem as necessidades e características específicas dessa população. Para isso, foram realizadas entrevistas abertas com seis casais homossexuais masculinos de Ribeirão Preto, constituídos de parceiros adultos com pelo menos três anos de coabitação. As entrevistas foram áudio-gravadas, transcritas na íntegra e submetidas à análise de conteúdo temática. Como complementação, foi mantido um diário de campo para registro de impressões e acontecimentos durante a fase de coleta de dados. A partir da análise do material pôde-se identificar que o processo de construção da relação desses casais é marcado pela busca de modelos de relacionamento em que ora leva a comparação ao modelo heterossexual dominante, ora culmina com o desenvolvimento criativo de um estilo particular de conjugalidade. Os casais relatam esforço de negociação das diferenças que emergem ao longo da história da relação e que demandam mudanças contínuas. Tais mudanças imprimem um caráter transformador à experiência conjugal. Os ritos que os casais desenvolvem atuam como forma de circunscrever os limites da relação, marcar o tempo e as fases compartilhadas e de oferecer segurança na medida em que produzem uma tradição confortante. Além disso, a relação homossexual é produzida em contínuo diálogo com as instâncias sociais que muitas vezes, por preconceito e discriminação, limitam e isolam a experiência conjugal, constituindo uma fonte de angústia. Nesse sentido, a ciência psicológica pode contribuir favorecendo a criação de espaços e contextos dialógicos onde esses casais possam encontrar apoio e auxílio na construção de seus relacionamentos. / The new century has brought meaningful changes in social, political and economical structures. In the social arena, we can notice a reconfiguration of familiar models, once bound to a nuclear and patriarchal standard, and nowadays open to several possible configurations, from among homosexual couples. The debate around such relations is getting louder and visible and its outcomes move in the political, legal, religious, moral and scientific fields. It can be noticed a relative bias either in the academic discussion or in psychological practice to search for a non-stigmatizing approach. On the other hand, scientific literature concerning this subject is scarce and national studies are even rarer. Thus, this qualitative study aimed at understanding the conjugal experience of male homosexual couples as part of the contemporary transformations on intimacy. We believe that such understanding can subsidize the planning and execution of psychological interventions designed to meet the specific characteristics and needs of this population. Six male adult homosexual couples from Ribeirão Preto with at least three years of cohabitation were interviewed. The interviews were audio-recorded, fully transcribed and submitted to a content analysis. A field diary was kept as a complementary form of data collection, in which impressions and especial events were registered. The interviews analysis shows that the process though which the couples construct their relations is marked by the search for relationship standards that either leads to a comparison to the dominant heterosexual model, or ends up in the creative development of a particular conjugal pattern. The couples report effort to negotiate the differences that emerges during the history of the relationship and that demands continuous changes. Such changes determine a transformative character to the conjugal experience. Rites developed inside the relationship works as forms of circumscribing the relations boundaries, marking time and stages and offering security once they produce a comfortable tradition. Furthermore, homosexual relationships are produced in a continuous dialogue with social instances that, often by prejudice and discrimination, constrain and isolate the conjugal experience, constituting a source of distress. In this sense, Psychology can contribute favoring the creation of dialogical contexts where these couples may find support in the construction of their relationships.

Bisexual identity is formed within the constraints of a heteronormative framework which is infused with power, promotes stability and alignment of apparently binary sex, gender identity, and gender roles, as well as promoting procreation, monosexuality and monogamy. Heteronormative models of sexuality fail to capture the complexity, ambiguity, multiplicity, and fluidity of bisexual experience. Using data collected through interviews with twelve self-identified bisexual men this research explores questions of how bisexual men make sense of what it means to be bisexual within a heteronormative framework of sexuality and if they disrupt or reproduce dominant understandings of sexuality. I found these bisexual men sometimes conformed to a dominant framework; however, as an example of how identity can be unstable in both meaning and expression they also took up a provisional bisexual identity and disrupted dominant discourses by redefining bisexual meanings – offering alternatives to the binary, gender based definitions of sexuality, and monosexuality. / Graduate

Throughout the first decade of the 2000s, LGBTQ+ visibility has steadily increased in North American popular culture, allowing for not only more LGBTQ+ characters/figures to surface, but also establishing more diverse and nuanced representations and storylines. Bisexuality, while being part of the increasingly popular phrase of inclusivity (LGBTQ+), however, is one sexuality that not only continues to be overlooked within popular culture but that also continues to be represented in limited ways. In this doctoral thesis I examine how bisexual women are represented within mainstream popular culture, in particular on American television, focusing on two, popular programs (The L Word and the Shot At Love series). These texts have been chosen for popularity and visibility in mainstream media and culture, as well as for how bisexual women are unprecedentedly made central to many of the storylines (The L Word) and the series as a whole (Shot At Love). This analysis provides not only a detailed historical account of bisexual visibility but also discusses bisexuality thematically, highlighting commonalities across bisexual representations as well as shared themes between and with other identities. By examining key examples of bisexuality in popular culture from the first decade of the twenty-first century, my research investigates how representations of bisexuality are often portrayed in conversation with hegemonic understandings of gender and sexuality, specifically highlighting the mainstream "gay rights" movement's narrative of "normality" and "just like you" politics. Finally, it is in recognizing how representations of bisexuality are framed by specific reoccurring themes/tropes, as well as how these themes/tropes work together within larger social, cultural, and political climates, that it becomes possible to challenge existing gender and sexuality norms and ideals and create a more nuanced and complex understanding of bisexuality.

Previous discussions of the category of homosexual panic have tended to dismiss it as anachronistic or homophobic. In contrast to these approaches, this thesis takes the term more seriously, arguing for its structural necessity to particular instances of literature, psychiatry and law in the United States. This interdisciplinary endeavor tracks the histories of the term, examining the impact of homosexual panic on contemporary understandings of sexuality, time and personhood. Adopting a Foucauldian framework, the chapters avoid offering a singular definition of homosexual panic in order to articulate the forces that historically make sense of the category. Divided into three sections, each organized around one of the areas in which homosexual panic occurs (literature, psychiatry and law), the thesis returns to the primary texts on homosexual panic, reading them against their source texts and in the context of current approaches to homosexual panic within the field of sexuality studies. In the literature section, I focus on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's appropriation of the term in Between Men and Epistemology of the Closet, reading this against her sources (both literary and critical) including Henry James' 'The Beast in the Jungle,' Gayle Rubin's 'The Traffic In Women,' James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner and contemporary uses of Sedgwick's concept in P.J. Smith's Lesbian Panic. The chapters explore the imploded time of homosexual panic to expand upon theorizations of temporality by queer scholars, including Lee Edelman, Judith Halberstam and Elizabeth Freeman. Secondly, the psychiatry section reads the origin of homosexual panic in Edward Kempf's 1920's text Psychopathology in context with its dismissal in 1980's psychiatric articles. Here, the mythologization of Kempf is read as establishing the American Psychiatric Association as coherent. Developing a theory of myth from psychoanalytic theorist, Shoshana Felman, the section creates alternate possible histories of homosexual panic through close readings of parallel concepts like Freud's derealization and Roger Caillois' dark space. Thirdly, the legal section offers close readings of Cynthia Lee's 'The Homosexual Panic Defense' and two court cases, the murder of Matthew Shepard and the trail of John Stephan Parisie, to articulate the components of the Homosexual Panic Defense (HPD). The chapters suggest that arguments against the HPD work by upholding panic-structures of revelation, outing and latency, while failing to address how homosexual panic is prefigured in certain versions of the U.S. Law. These readings show how homosexual panic has become an example of, and strategy for, people living moments 'beside' their literary, psychiatric and legal selves. I call these moments 'paratime', which, I argue, enables new queer theorizations of concepts constituting these fields. By showing how homosexual panic structures queer time in literature, mythology in psychiatry and truth in law, the thesis demonstrates the influence of homosexual panic on the terms placed at the center of each field. The conclusion argues that homosexual panic troubles the centrality of these concepts and, invoking Judith Butler, proposes alternate modes of theorization that enable us to recognize how particular lives continue to be made unlivable.

Using in-depth interviews with six participants, this qualitative project examines LGBTQ+ experiences in Conservative Christian communities in British Columbia and Alberta through the lens of queer theory. The research questions guiding this project are: 1) How influential is the role of Christianity in the formation of non-normative genders and sexualities? 2) How do LGBTQ+ individuals understand their LGBTQ+ identity when situated within a traditionally heteronormative religious community? 3) Does there continue to be a code of silence surrounding LGBTQ+ identities within Conservative Christian communities? 4) How do LGBTQ+ individuals deal with the perceived incompatibility between their faith and their sexuality and/or gender? Findings indicate that participants view the silence surrounding LGBTQ+ issues and the subsequent lack of formal support for LGBTQ+ individuals as complicit in perpetuating rhetoric that LGBTQ+ identities are abnormal, sinful, and shameful. The majority of participants did not experience extended internalized conflict between their sexual/gender and religious identities, though they did struggle with trying to integrate their LGBTQ+ identities into their Conservative Christian communities. All participants shifted to a more personalized faith and view Christianity as a resource instead of a requirement, and the majority of participants frame both their gender/sexual identity and religious identity as fluid and liminal, subject to change depending on the context. Recommendations for Conservative Christian communities to better address sexual and gender diversity include exposure, celebration of LGBTQ+ identities, adherence to unconditional love as a core tenet of Christianity, and transparency regarding community stances on LGBTQ+ individuals and issues. / Graduate