As LGBTQ issues come to the forefront of discussion, the acceptance of queer television is becoming more common. However, research has shown that seemingly progressive shows often reinforce dominant ideologies, despite the presence of queer characters or themes. This analysis seeks to understand whether the children's animated series, Steven Universe, is as progressive as reviews would make it seem. Two open-ended research questions are used to explore the constructions of gender and romance in the series. Through the use of queer analysis, this study reveals that the series is indeed queer. The series narrative subverts gender through the deconstruction of societal binaries. Likewise, love is treated inclusively, and is not limited to heterosexual romances. Steven Universe, though not perfect, is an amicable example of how children's cartoons can educate upcoming generations in what it means to defy expectations and go beyond labels.

The years between 1989 and 1993 witnessed a sea change in the fabric of contemporary artistic practice, with a sudden embrace of previously marginalized identities on the part of museums, galleries and other institutions. This dissertation traces how sexuality, race and gender came to be placed at the center of discussions of contemporary art, and examines the ways in which artists responded to the sudden embrace of marginal identities on the part of museums and other art institutions in the early 1990s by harnessing the potential of this newly increased visibility, and also by developing strategies to offset the spectacularization of their identities. In particular, I focus on the collision between this new institutional desire for difference and the emergence of a notion of queerness that is specifically anti-identitarian and thus in conflict with the imperative to produce art about one’s identity. The dissertation is structured around four exhibitions that each played a crucial role in establishing this reorganization of the art world. This sequence of exhibitions narrates the larger structural shift through gradual steps, but each chapter also serves as a case study, since distinct notions of power emerge from the individual exhibitions. Tied into these divergent, sometimes incompatible understandings of power were competing understandings of the ways in which identity could be engaged politically and aesthetically. In particular, I focus on how a melancholic approach to queer subjectivity was materialized in art at the time, on the resurgence of documentary practices, on psychoanalytically inflected artistic interventions into museum spaces, and on the emergence of new forms of artistic critique.

This dissertation traces the literary and cultural phenomenon of “bad readers” across a range of Greek and Latin texts from the late first to late second centuries CE. By jointly engaging the framework of book history with the insights of feminist, queer, critical theory, it offers a methodology for understanding why certain readerly embodiments and modes are stigmatized for deviating from the hegemonic norm, and how the contested space of reading intersects with negotiations of power, embodiment, and identity. I argue that “bad readers” are not “bad” in any inherent or universal sense, but rather that “bad readers” intersect with particular literary, cultural, and ideological agendas. I also show how “bad readers” help illuminate the broader material, social networks that are adumbrated by books as objects in antiquity, thus contributing to recent work that has emphasized the importance of situating “reading” within its ancient, sociocultural context. At the same time, this study lays bare how such work has also tended to leave the question of modern readerly poses and politics to the side. Ultimately, this study shows how literary representations of “bad readers” offer a powerful locus for telling a different story about books and reading in the ancient Mediterranean, as well as a lens for theorizing how certain hermeneutic modes in the discipline today participate in and reproduce hierarchies of power.

Black Queer students in the United States did not ask to be born into a social world where being both Black and Queer are associated with stigma and marginalized oppression they did not contribute or consent to. Acknowledging that too often, the unique needs of and contributions made by Black Queer public middle and high school students in the United States are absent within research, policymaking, and practice, this dissertation seeks to fill a gap in the existing literature by exploring essential characteristics and features of informal educational programs and activities (IEPAs) from the perspective of Black Queer middle and high school students. Informal educational programs and activities are sites of possibility that have a long history in the African American tradition of learning and development. IEPAs are supported by public investments at every level of government. Specifically, this dissertation employs a secondary analysis of GLSEN's 2017 School Climate Survey (School Climate Survey) dataset to examine the relative impact of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and demographic variables on how frequently Black Queer public school students attend informal educational programs and activities. Quantitative analysis is enhanced by interviews with Black Queer public middle and high school graduates, split by gender and program participation. I find that Queer Black youth are more likely to participate in IEPAs when they are older, in urban areas, out to their peers, and in school contexts where they do not feel respected, feel unsafe because of their gender, are subject to policies that preclude bathroom choice, and observe symbols in their schools conveying that they are safe spaces. Some interpersonal and school context factors are significant for trans and non-binary/non-conforming students. I conclude with recommendations for the design of school programs and policies that can enable youth with multiple marginalized identities to thrive.

In previous research biological sex and gender are defined as the same thing, which has lead to a misconception of Gender. However, the notion of stereotypes being connected to a sex is inevitable. While this may not be true in each and every game, drastic underrepresentation becomes a problem. It is a self-perpetuating cycle; designing for a target group that is constructed from a stereotype, that stereotype then dictates the norm for the target group and society adapts to fit that norm. This cycle has to break, as people are not stereotypes. Our hypothesis is that a queer perspective could provide a more nuanced spectrum of gender thus making games more inclusive for a broader audience. We will test this by using a queer theoretical approach to discourse analysis of segments from the game: Dragon Age: Origins ™ (2009). We chose this game for the chance to explore the possibilities for self-expression and sexuality in an environment which allows a more complex relationship between characters.

Frank Norris's novel McTeague can be read as an intense reflection on the limitations of language surrounding fluid sexualities in late-nineteenth century America. Through a queer theoretical lens, I examine the ways in which Norris collapses his characters and narrative in order to demonstrate those limits. Trina and McTeague suffer acutely from their inability to articulate their sexualities, and the narrator of the novel does little to compensate for the characters\' failure to speak. The novel, which is a collection of broken genres, further exposes the fact that various kinds of rigid narrative forms cannot sufficiently frame or articulate fluid sexualities. Through character, narrative, and genre breakdown, Norris reflects how the nineteenth century's lack of language regarding those who occupy a variety of sexualities can tear people and language apart. / Master of Arts

My project looks at current conceptualizations of identity relating to gender and sexuality in order to understand how queer individuals enact gender as connected to their non-normative sexuality. I will use the notion of "desire" through Butler's (1990) notion of performativity as a part of iterability that reproduces an opposition between what is intended and how it is perceived. This approach creates space to problematize the status of identities that posits the conception of fluidity and dialectic as attached to notions of gendered sexualities - the understanding that sexuality interacts with gender and that these two notions are not compartmentalized. The construction of these systems of categorization allows for an assumption of the role of sexuality as connected to gender that can then be read through discursive practices and performances. This research is placed within a post-structuralist and queer theory discussion that is used to understand identity as separate from an isolated core self and is rather comprehended through a particular connection of gender, sex, desire, and performance. By entering into a queer theory and post-structuralist discussion, this project aims to highlight ways in which gender and sex are not necessarily "intelligible" - in which one's gender enactment follows their sex, which then leads them to be attracted to the "opposite" sex/gender - and by doing so I will be able to understand how non-heterosexuals understand their own sexualized gender. The categories of gender and desire are not mutually exclusive nor are they dichotomous. According to Butler (1990), the heterosexual matrix addresses the power structures associated with hegemonic modes of discourse and thought; therefore, my project embraces this approach to gender and sexuality and how these understandings create a unique performance of repetition that further constructs an identity. This study specializes in the reformulation and re-articulation of a distinct consciousness of compounded identities that are comprised of a sexualized gender involving the performative interplay of sexuality on gender for queer individuals. In addition, this project seeks to understand how queer individuals form, understand, perform, and enact their evolving gender identity as connected to their sexuality. Specifically my research asks: 1) How do queer individuals narrate the construction of their particular identities? 2) How do queer individuals enact their gender as connected to sexuality? and 3) How do queer individuals describe their identities as marginalized? In order to answer these questions I conducted 20 interviews with queer individuals in Portland, OR aged 18-35 in order to get a broad range of life experiences. The use of one-on-one interviews allowed me to get at the interpretative perspective of the participant such that they can clarify the connections and relationships they see between their own sexualized gender enactment and the world around them. This also allowed access to acquire information about the social interplay of gender, sex, and desire and how these individuals may or may not place importance on their queer identity and the processes involved.

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This thesis is an examination of the representation of trans characters like Bridget from GuiltyGear Strive(2021). By analyzing trans representation in movies and games, the typical tropesof trans characters were found, and conducting a close reading of the visual design of Bridgetto see where she represents and differs from these tropes. The results of the close readingfound that Bridget's shape language conveys a harmless appearance, differing from the tropeof violence. The color scheme conveys harmonious and youthful, contrasting trope ofdysphoria. Bridget's cute appearance makes her similar to the trope of ambiguity. Bridget'suse of toys as weapons makes her comedic without becoming the butt of the joke. Bridget isnot treated as disgusting nor focused on the male gaze. This thesis concludes that Bridgetmainly differs by not being as adult-oriented, showing it can represent trans identity withoutrelying on these negative tropes.

This dissertation argues for an ethical investment in the flourishing of black trans women. It builds on the ongoing work of womanist and black theological ethics and draws from the personal narratives of black trans women. Carrying forward the black ethical tradition, this project recognizes black trans women and their lived experiences as an ethical source from which a unique, ethical posture emerges: ploughing. Necessitated by a social context that understands black trans feminine existence as abject and expendable, this ethical posture is a necessarily dynamic and laborious movement through life that resists and disrupts the moral ground thereby revealing and creating new moral possibilities in the process. Ploughing shows how the everyday experiences of black trans existence embody moral postures of resistance to heteropatriarchal systems of surveillance and violence. Ploughing denotes a series of ethical postures that generate alternate moral capacities that embrace embodiment and underscore the centrality of community. Focusing on respectability politics, its influence on black (Christian) religious spaces, and the operations of Black Sexual Panopticism (BSP), a system wherein black sexuality is acculturated through surveillance, chapters 1 and 2 examine the long history of social narratives that regulated and disciplined black movement and sexuality in ways that later targeted black trans femininity. Chapter 3 turns to black aesthetics. It examines blues culture and its links to black gospel through gesture and performance, introducing interstitial performativity as a glimpse of the moral potential within black-constituted spaces that affirm black erotic expression. The remaining chapters develop ethical postures through the metaphor of ploughing, highlighting distinctive features of black trans women’s existence. Drawing on published personal narratives, Chapter 4 outlines the social realities that confine and relegate black trans femininity in service of oppressive demands for social order. Chapter 5 identifies four ethical postures -- claiming pleasure, humble un/knowing, incessant becoming, and “no mind” ethos -- that coalesce to form ploughing. These postures irrupt social expectations and forge new moral trails in the process. This project recognizes black trans women as moral exemplars largely overlooked in Christian ethics, and the moral imperative to prioritize black trans feminine futures.