<p> Artists such as Chantal Akerman and Sylvia Plath, both of whom came of age in mid-twentieth century America, have a tendency to show concern with doubles in their work&mdash;Toni Morrison&rsquo;s <i>Beloved </i>, Maya Deren&rsquo;s <i>Meshes of the Afternoon</i>, Cheryl Dunye&rsquo;s <i>The Watermelon Woman</i>&mdash;and oftentimes situate <i> their</i> protagonists as doubles of themselves, carefully monitoring the distance they create between themselves and their double. This choice acts as a kind of self-constitution, by which I mean a self-fashioning that works through an imperfect mirroring of the text&rsquo;s author presented as a double in a fictional work. Texts that employ self-constitution often show a concern with liminality, mirroring, consumption, animism, repressed trauma, suicide, and repetition. </p><p> It is the goal of this thesis to examine these motifs in Sylvia Plath&rsquo;s <i> The Bell Jar</i> and the early work of Chantal Akerman, all of which coalesce to create coherent&mdash;but destabilizing&mdash;texts that propose a new queer subject position, and locate the death drive&mdash;the desire to return to the mother&rsquo;s womb&mdash;as their source. I will examine the uncanny on various levels, zooming out from the micro-level elements of the text to its broader relationship to its environment: from rhetoric, to the physical landscapes of the texts, to characters of the text, to the structure of the text (as confined by its frame), and then, finally, outside the text itself, to the author&rsquo;s relationship with her double. What I will argue here is that Akerman and Plath&mdash;in doubling on both the extradiegetic and intradiegetic levels of their work&mdash;propose a queer liminal space that siphons and ultimately expels repressed uncanny desire, allowing for both self-sustainability and personal integrity.</p>

<p> The male Athenian aristocracy erected an exemplary polis. The city-state reflected aesthetic perfection, civility, grace, and philosophical clarity of mind. As the &ldquo;school of Hellas,&rdquo; in the words of Thucydides, Athens has proved to be fundamental for all Western cultures. It was also an originator of &ldquo;civilized dominance,&rdquo; which meant sequestering, and it was suppressing its &ldquo;non-phallic&rdquo; population. This study explores the institutionalized subordinating of women, the muting of their ability to be heard, in an attempt to unearth the deeply entrenched precedents of abuse from phallic dominance within society.</p>

<p> Participatory Action Research (PAR) was utilized as the primary research methodology in conducting a program evaluation and development of a mythopoetic men&rsquo;s retreat. Over the course of a two-year exploratory process, a variety of qualitative and quantitative measures were used to plan, conduct, and respond to research studying Victories of the Heart&rsquo;s Breakthrough Weekend retreats. This research sought to understand the weekend&rsquo;s effect on the levels of gender role conflict, perceived social support and psychological wellbeing in men who attended the retreat. Changes in these variables were measured using the Gender Role Conflict Scale &ndash; Short Form, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the Flourishing Scale through use of an independent measures pretest posttest design. Qualitative interviews were conducted in order to better understand the research and programmatic needs of Victories of the Heart as an organization, the lived experiences of the men who attended these retreats as well as future directions for research and program development. Although no statistically significant changes were found in the quantitative data, the Breakthrough Weekend participants described their retreat experiences as &ldquo;life changing&rdquo; during qualitative interviews.</p>

<p>Sexual Orientation Discrimination: Effects of Microaggressions on Coming Out and Organizational Attraction

<p> Stalking has been a growing concern in criminology over the past few decades. This area needs more theoretical development. Two important theoretical perspectives are gender inequality and routine activities theory. So far, these perspectives have not been combined in research. This study seeks to improve research on stalking by integrating these two theories. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship that economic ability and routine activities have on a woman's risk of being stalked, as well as whether economic ability and routine activities can predict whether a victim can successfully change their routine activities and prevent future stalking events. Although the primary focus of this study is female victims, a comparative analysis between male and female victims is also performed. The data used for this study are the 2006 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and its Supplemental Victimization Survey (SVS), which focuses on detailing aspects of respondents' stalking victimizations.</p><p>

<p>This research aims to facilitate better understanding of perceptions of gender roles and gender equality among members of the Evangelical Church and to determine whether these perceptions differ by gender. The evangelical community?s ideologies and values have come to shape social and political dialogues within the United States. A key component of the faith is understanding the role each member plays within his or her family unit and community at large. The evangelical faith?s organizational structure and ideologies are informed by a patriarchal model that?s placed women at internal and structural odds, based on research exploring evangelically informed organizations. However, there is a gap in literature related to gender roles and equality within the faith, and how these perceptions may differ by gender and the influence a church?s organizational structure may have on these perceptions. This process involved the examination of perceptions of gender among evangelical Christians in a nationally representative sample. These findings informed a series of questions designed to explore, at greater depth on a regional level, the views of evangelicals regarding gender roles and gender equality within their organizations. The study provided a multidimensional construct of how the evangelical community defines themselves, understands gender roles and gender equality, and how these definitions affirm and conflict with definitions outside of the church as well as their own church?s leadership and organizational structure.

This dissertation is an ethnography about British Bangladeshi women of different age groups who live in London. In this study I explore the identity dynamics of these women. I do this through an intersectional approach, focussing on age, generation, socio-economic status, and time of migration. I argue that the term 'generation', which has been used in existing literature on diaspora and migration, is confusing and inappropriate to address the diversity of diaspora people in relation to their intersectional and contextual differences. Hence, a significant finding is that using 'cohort' can be an appropriate way to avoid generalizing diasporan, and address diversity among them and the different contexts in which they are situated. My participants have been through distinctive experiences in their process of migration, most at different and particular stages of their life cycles, and in some cases, even women in the same age groups have had different contextual or transnational upbringing in the pre and post migration phases. Therefore, arguing that the term 'generation' is confounding, I have preferred to categorise my participants as members of particular 'cohorts' from an ethnographic perspective through intersecting their age, time of migration, and contextual upbringing. I have termed them as follows: the Pioneer Cohort, the Cooked in Britain Cohort, the British-born Cohort and the New-migrant Cohort. I argue that by playing multiple, dynamic and multifaceted roles in a diaspora and transnational space, these diverse groups of women are constantly forming and reforming their positionality. This process of forming fluid and dynamic identities in context, which I call 'contextual identity', challenges the feminization of ethnicity in a diaspora space, and provides diaspora women of different age groups with the power of speech, prominence, belonging, demonstration and self-confidence to contribute in a changing diaspora and transnational space.

<p> Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder have become widely researched topics within the field of military psychology; however, within the past few years, new research on the topic of moral injury has emerged. The studies conducted on moral injury are growing in number, though research continues to lack on the experience of moral injury within the female Veteran population. The goal of this research is to capture the lived meaning, or lived experiences, of moral injury in female Veterans. Four participants who identified as female Veterans, and who experienced one or more deployments throughout the duration of their military service, were asked about their experiences of moral injury during their time serving in the United States military. This study uses an existential-phenomenological method to understand the participant&rsquo;s experiences of moral injury. This study will conclude with implications for application to clinical care, and recommendations for future research.</p><p>

<p> The lives and careers of the three women composers Marion Bauer (1882-1955), Miriam Gideon (1906-1996), and Vivian Fine (1913-2000) spanned more than a century. Each wrote works for viola and piano, including Bauer's Sonata for Viola and Piano, op. 22, Gideon's Sonata for Viola and Piano, and Fine's <i> Lieder for Viola and Piano.</i> Together, these composers' careers encompass a number of important trends in the professional development of the twentieth century woman composer in the United States. </p><p> Women composers were hindered in their advancement and acknowledgement for a number of reasons. One of these was a lack of "female tradition", the absence of an existing community of successful women composers to look to as examples. Another was the "female affiliation complex", the idea that female professionals struggle to look toward their predecessors as models because the female tradition is devalued. First, this document will explore the lives and influences of Marion Bauer, Miriam Gideon, and Vivian Fine, aiming to contribute to a better understanding of how "female tradition" and the "female affiliation complex" affected these composers' lives. Second, each work for viola and piano will undergo theoretical analysis focusing on goal-directed linearity. Goal-directed linearity is an issue of interest to performers and will encourage a deeper understanding of the works in question, fostering their further performance and dissemination.</p><p>

abstract: Personal histories are deeply rooted into my way of existence, far before my brain became ready to challenge such notions. While Americans have been witnesses to the splintering effects of colonialism and patriarchy on socialization, I ask two questions: (1) Where to stand within a society that promotes the marginalization of both women and brown bodies? And (2) how to combat these harsh realities and protect those most affected? Being both Black and woman, I decided to embark upon a quest of self-actualization in this document. “Ain’t She Sweet: A Critical Choreographic Study of Identity & Intersectionality,” tracks the creative process and concept design behind my applied project for the Master of Fine Arts in Dance. Developed in extensive rehearsals, community engagement, journaling processes, and lived experiences, the physical product, “Ain’t She Sweet,” explored concepts such as identity, socialization, oppression, decolonization, sexuality, and civil rights. The chapters within this document illustrate the depth of the research conducted to form the evening-length production and an analysis of the completed work. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Dance 2019