In this project I argue that trauma is a major component of society. Rather than positioning trauma as an event, I contend that it should be understood as an environmental force. To form this reorientation I look to an actual environment and the ways in which it remembers and responds to systemic violence. Specifically, I track the colonization and exploitation of Mount Baldy, and how natural occurrences such as floods and fires have consistently threatened human development on the mountain. If trauma is both monumentally impactful and an environmental force, then it merits a major rethinking of many of the aspects of human existence that are assumed to be stable. In chapter 1, I move trauma outside of the psychological definitions of the DSM and into a communal and systemic framework. In chapter 2, I use a case study of Mount Baldy to understand how environmental forces react to trauma, which provides a way to imagine how a society or community might collectively operate as a traumatized being. In chapter 3, I undertake a material research process using clay harvested from Mount Baldy. Clay, which mimics characteristics of the human body and is literally a part of the natural environment, connects the embodied nature of trauma for human to the ecological manifestations of trauma. This allows a glimpse at what it might mean to acknowledge trauma as a major component of the human experience.

An attempt was made to investigate the extent to which individuals are unknowingly influenced by a sex role stereotype in their evaluations of men and women. It was hypothesized that subjects would describe a character in more potency-related, “masculine” terms if that character had been identified as a male than if the character had been identified as a female. Subjects taking part in this study were an equal number of male and female students in introductory psychology classes. The semantic differential technique was employed as a descriptive tool for the subjects’ evaluations of a character they read about in a short passage. The content of the passage used was designed to include qualities usually thought of as masculine and qualities usually thought of as feminine. A 2 x 2 factorial analysis of variance procedure was performed. The results indicated no significant differences either for Factor A, sex of the stimulus figure, or Factor B, sex of the subject. This suggests that both males and females described the character equally in terms of potency and that the sex of the character portrayed did not significantly influence the subjects’ perceptions or evaluations. However, the interaction effects of the two factors did approach significance. Male subjects tended to produce a lower mean potency score when evaluating a female character than when evaluating a male character. On the other hand, female subjects showed the opposite tendency of evaluating a female character with a higher potency rating than they gave to a male character.

No description available.

This dissertation examines discourses and experiences of reproduction in Virginia, 1630-1785. I define reproduction as an experiential reality that contoured women's lives in specific ways, as a central demographic phenomenon that shaped colonial populations, and as a discourse of power in the colonial project. Informed by feminist theory, queer theory, and postcolonial theory, the dissertation examines the relationship between reproduction and colonialism in the development of a plantation economy in Virginia. I draw on a varied archive of court documents, colonial records, newspapers and other print culture, plantation records, diaries, letters, and medical texts. Chapter 1, "'A considerable parcel of breeders': Reproduction and Discourses of Racial Slavery in Colonial Virginia," examines the ways that development of racial slavery in Virginia was based, in part, on the appropriation of black women's reproduction. I examine the roots of the 1662 law that defined slavery as a condition of birth, finding the legal and cultural precedent for the law in the conflation of servitude and bastardy. I further examine the vernacular discourses of slavery that used reproduction to define enslaved people (especially women) as a kind of property legally similar to livestock. I close the chapter with a discussion of the Virginia House of Burgesses debates around defining slaves as real or personal property, and I argue that these debates were a consequence of defining slavery as a status of birth. In Chapter 2, "Wicked, Dangerous, and Ungoverned: The Transgressive Possibilities of Reproduction," I examine the ways that childbearing could transgress colonial hierarchies and boundaries, especially in cases of bastardy and interracial birth. Throughout the chapter, I am particularly interested in understanding the relationship between domination and transgression, and the specific ways that reproduction could inhabit the space between those two poles. In Chapter 3, "Knowledge 'not fit to be discust publiquely': Colonialism and the Transformation of Reproductive Knowledge," I examine the ways that colonialism transformed Virginians' reproductive episteme. I attempt to reconstruct knowledge about reproduction in this space and time, and I show how childbearing became a potent intimate zone for the negotiating of colonial power relations. In the final chapter, '"She lives in an infant country that wants nothing but people': Discourses of Reproduction, Print Culture, and Virginia's Colonial Project," I examine the competing discourses of reproduction that informed Virginia's colonial project. I argue that two competing discourses about reproduction - one that privileged "prolific reproduction" and another that privileged "rational reproduction" - show the ways that the experience of colonialism transformed ideas about reproduction. This transformation occurred because the exigencies of the colonial project prioritized the maintaining of colonial boundaries and hierarchies over the early notion of peopling a "virgin" land.

No description available.

Over the past 30 years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) groups have called for children’s books to include LGBTQ characters and themes to help children understand our multifaceted social world. Few LGBTQ characters have appeared in children’s literature. This qualitative study analyzes the text and images of 29 children’s books published between 1972 and 2013 that have any LGBTQ characters. Books featuring lesbian and gay characters often presented them as conforming to heteronormative standards to find fulfillment. The majority of books with gender-deviant characters focused on boys harassed by other characters for their conventionally feminine behaviors. Surprisingly few books in this inclusive sample depicted any non-white characters. This study concludes by offering recommendations for how authors of children’s books could approach this genre without reinforcing other long-standing inequalities tied to gender, race, class, and sexuality.

Narrative analysis of the impact of heterosexism on K-12 lesbian teachers. For full abstract, visit the American Folklore Society Annual Meeting Program Book.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.