Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Creative Technologies and Media. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 277-296).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2009. Graduate Programme in Interdisciplinary Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-179). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR51556

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010. / Directed by Leila Villaverde; submitted to the Dept. of Educational Leadership and Cultural Foundations. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jul. 7, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 223).

This project focuses on Horus Gilgamesh’s Awkward Moments of the Children’s Bible, Vol. 1 (2013), an adult picture book that parodies the Bible by illustrating biblical scriptures with child unfriendly images of gore, sex, and God’s sexy ass. Using semiotic, religious, and queer theory, I read this text as not only a satirical one, but one that is life affirming to “childish adults”—those individuals who don’t quite fit into the heteropatriachichal standards normalized by religious right ideologies.

Through my PhD thesis, ‘Porno-graphing: ‘dirty’ subjectivities & self-objectification in contemporary lens-based art’, I use the term ‘porno-graphing’ to group together and examine lens-based artworks where artists use as art-material sexual situations or sets of sexual dynamics present in their life independently of their art practice. I consider how artists act upon these sexual situations in order to make art out of them, the art-results they produce and their means of sharing them with audiences. I argue that the artists whose work I examine, use sexual situations that can potentially be perceived as ‘taboo’; for example Leigh Ledare involves incest-related dynamics in Pretend You Are Actually Alive and Kathy Acker with Alan Sondheim implicate child-sexual subjectivities in the Blue Tape. I argue that they choose and use these situations to self-submit into the ‘dirtiness’ of their sexual and artistic subjectivities and in doing so to negotiate how subjectivity is produced. To do so, they use visual vocabularies of autobiography to self-objectify into roles as both artists, e.g. assuming positions such as the white male pornographer-exploiter (the work of Ledare) and as sexual subjects, e.g. ‘perverted’ or hyper-sexual objects of desire (the work of Lo Liddell). In embracing these roles they create ‘intensified encounters’ (Edelman & Berlant, 2014) between the artist, the art-object and the viewer, to interrogate ‘normative’ and ‘antinormative’ patterns of meaning-making and value-attribution regarding subjectivity and art.

Women of color who are also sexual minorities face an interesting position of being marginalized on multiple dimensions of their identity. Psychological health and well being can be negatively impacted by having a minority status, so it is imperative that psychologists are aware of cultural differences and are competent in addressing them (APA, 2002). For persons with marginalized racial, gender, and sexual identities, identity is crafted in ways that create meaning for the individual despite experiences of racism, sexism, or homophobia. The purpose of this study was to give voice to the lived experiences of African American women who are sexual minorities. Ten interviews were conducted using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and used frameworks of Queer Theory and intersectionality to study the experience of having multiple marginalized identities (i.e., racial, sexual, and gender identities), in addition to the meaning that individuals derive from the experience of their identity. Eight Emergent Themes were identified: (1) Dichotomy of Identity, (2) (Dis)Comfort in Communities, (3) Cultural Expectations, (4) Power and Oppression, (5) Movement between Categories, (6) Congruence, (7) Challenges to Identity, and (8) Expression and Performance of Self.

This study investigates ‘how men knitting functions as a queer pedagogy’. In the doing it recognizes that a man knitting elbows his way into long-held contrived conventions of (domestic) femininity, queering space and generally causing embarrassment and a sense of cultural unease through his performance. As a work of educational research (situated within a Society, Culture, and Literacies profile) it is intent on troubling lingering gender-based notions of in/appropriate educational research and what remains academically out-of-bounds: knitting as domestic diversion has largely been neglected by scholars with the few academic sources focusing almost exclusively (and unapologetically) on female knitters. As such, the pedagogical meaning(s) of men knitting are essentially absent from the educational literature. This research project seeks to address that gap. Taking the form of three journal articles, this work reads the everyday performance of men knitting as queer pedagogy, learning which ‘minces’ and troubles not only masculinity but traditional constructions of educational discourse limiting pedagogy to classrooms and accredited educators. Using personal narrative and a methodology which brings together document analysis and queer theory, this study interrogates photographic and other artifacts through a queer lens, destabilizing meaning(s) and problematizing gender. It recognizes that leisure activities like knitting, as with other human activities, are by-products of the culture where they’re re/produced and a reflection of broader societal boundaries. ‘Men knitting as a queer pedagogy,’ is about gendered desires, anxieties, and places where critical dissatisfactions with culture gets performed in other/ed ways.

This phenomenological research study examined the perceived experiences of K-12 queer school leaders in school workplaces. This study discussed events, state laws, workplace polices, and related repeated studies that demonstrate that K-12 queer school leaders experience challenges in school spaces because of their sexual and/or gender identities. The sample population for this study consisted of 10 participants. The data collection consisted of a recruitment survey, individual interviews, and document review of state laws and policies. The analysis of data included survey data, transcribed interviews, and document reviews. The data were coded and triangulated for reliability and the analysis was guided by queer theory, script theory, and Foucault’s work on perspectives on power-knowledge. There were three key findings that emerged: queer school leaders’ suitability, queer negotiations in school spaces, and institutionalized homophobia and gender-based prejudices in the school spaces. The results contemporaneously indicate that policy, procedures, practices, and hegemonic power constitute the producers and pushers of an institutionalize cis/hetero-patriarchy narrative. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Disney movies are a vehicle for American culture; however, Disney has lagged behind in representing queer people in their films as protagonists. For this reason, critical scholarship is necessary to understand Disney's role in building, replicating or changing culture. Although some critical work on Disney has focused on gender or race, queer theory is underutilized to understand Disney films, especially in the field of communication. Though much research exists on movies from the Disney Renaissance, relatively few have examined the films released in the past decade in a systematic way, focusing on how the movies may be relatable to queer experiences. This analysis combines a queer theory lens and a grounded theory approach to examine where queer people can find their experiences reflected in the most recent Disney movies, even without openly queer protagonists. The study resulted in the formation of six categories that describe instances of queering and queerness in Disney movies: queering of Disney logic, queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Previous literature and the new categories from this study as a whole suggest that the Walt Disney Company is taking small steps to offer more diverse narratives and subvert expectations in ways that allow queer people to read their experiences in the characters on screen. / Master of Arts / Disney movies are a multi-billion dollar industry (Vary, 2020), and the company has taken steps in recent years to feature more diverse storylines and characters in their animated movies. Despite this, there is yet to be an openly queer protagonist in a Disney animated film. With this fact in mind, this study seeks to find places where queer people can still see themselves and their experiences reflected in the Disney films release in the last decade. These instances range from ambiguity that allows audiences to read a character as similar to themselves to moments that question the power structures that push certain people to the margins of society in the first place. Six categories were created after analysis to describe these moments: the queering of Disney logic, the queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, the queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Taken together, these findings and the previous research on Disney suggests the company is slowly moving to open up storylines to allow more people to see their experiences reflected in the movies.

"Coming out" is a unique experience for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority individuals (LGB+), yet it remains ill-defined within scholarship and is individually focused. This study investigates how same-gender couples negotiate relationship visibility and what motivates them to come out to others. A queer theoretical framework was used to explore how partners do outness. To address the needs of the literature, constructivist grounded theory methods were employed in analyzing the data. These findings showed that the majority of couples believed they had a "mutual understanding" of the rules and boundaries in place for relational visibility. In addition, the ways in which different individuals felt compelled to come out or stay in was impacted by their connection to the historical context of the Gay Rights movement. Clinical implications to help clinicians between in assessment and conceptualization in their work with members of the population were determined. / Ph. D.