As a former UC Berkeley undergraduate and a University of Vermont graduate student, this is an educational autobiography of a self-identified Hapa, or mixed-race Asian American, through the lens of race and identity. Exploring what it means to be “white” and “privileged,” and realizing that these concepts--like identity--are fluid, this thesis adopts a dual methodology that includes personal narrative, as well as a meta-critical reflection. This thesis focuses on three memoirs: Bone Black and Wounds of Passion by bell hooks, and Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez, each of which explore themes of reclaiming voice and reconstructing identity with regards to race, class, and culture.

Eve Ensler's goal in writing The Vagina Monologues was to generate a dialogue regarding women's sexuality to counter the silence that pervades the patriarchal culture that they inhabit. To achieve this goal, Ensler constructs two ideologies—one grounded in patriarchy and another supposedly grounded in female agency and dialogue—to reveal the problems within the current ideology in hopes that her audience will adopt her new ideology and resolve the detrimental silence women endure. To evaluate its success, this study utilizes an eclectic approach—comprised of constitutive rhetoric, second persona, third persona, and bell hooks' rhetorical options—to determine if the play's content encourages the dialogue Ensler desires. / Master of Arts

The awareness of marginality, oppression, and hierarchy at an early age directly influences the creation of work specific to my identity as a woman of color. Born and raised on an island in the Pacific Ocean, I was aware of my sense of location and space relative to the world. The vast ocean separating me from the ‘mainland’ created a specific understanding of marginality, of what is “main” and what is “minor,” and how these categorical placements continued from my youth to ongoing perpetuation. The work I create has a subtle and persistent investigation into my identity as a socio-economic and ethnic minority woman. I attempt to translate and address my identity and cultural significance by creating works that bring about question and dialogue dealing with cultural normative values. My work subtly addresses theories of alienation, burden, heritage, and identity. I use materials and/or focus on importance of materiality to imply an inherent meaning through historical root, core, and/or initial function. Often this function has fixed placement in certain cultures and society. Although the work is visually and conceptually dark in nature, the desired feeling includes a very physical response while coexisting within the installation’s environment. Oppositional Gaze is a video based on my personal experience. I approach making from a lived and ongoing experience that is constant. On an ordinary day, I often witness acts of repression, acts of injustice, and absurd occurrences that are either directed at me or observed toward others. I impose inner turmoil upon myself of whether or not I shall respond or absorb what I have witnessed. These experiences have emerged at a time in my life, in a place I considered to be a dislocation of my physical presence in relation to my constant neighbor, with a metaphysical questioning of placement. The video is a visual and auditory whisper that reflects my internalized struggle. These true encounters of questions, statements, and name-calling were specifically chosen to address this reality on a large screen, symbolic to the hovering subjection of prejudices and stereotypes that resonate within me. These encounters are unexpected, yet not surprising when they happen due to the frequency of their occurrence.

I explore through feminist content analysis how poetry, blogging, political narrative, and music are employed by Black women as a means of personal and political empowerment, healing, activism and feminist practice. I theorize the emergence of a new manifestation Black feminism represented in poetry, blogs, political narrative, and popular music-exploring its ties to the history of Black feminism. I seek to demonstrate how gender conscious Black women create poetry, blogs, political narratives, and music as the catalyst to spark anti-sexist activism in contemporary Black women who may or may not call themselves feminists.

Magister Artium - MA / Volgens die Suid-Afrikaanse grondwet het vroueregte na die eerste demokratiese verkiesing in 1994 deel ontstaan. Dié vryhede wat die vrou ontvang het, was egter nie onproblematies nie – Suid-Afrikaanse vroue word steeds uitgelewer aan ’n patriargale samelewing. Die posisie van die swart vrou is veral problematies – swart vroue word nie net gemarginaliseer gebaseer op geslag nie, maar ook steeds as gevolg van ras. Die posisie van swart vroueskrywers in die Afrikaanse letterkunde asook die Nederlandse letterkunde is dan ook ’n aspek wat nog nie genoegsaam ondersoek word nie. Vir die doeleindes van hierdie studie word die werk van twee swart digters, een van Suid- Afrikaanse herkoms (Ronelda S. Kamfer) en een van Nederland (Simone Atangana Bekono), ondersoek. In 2008 word Ronelda S. Kamfer een van die eerste swart vroueskrywers wat ’n volledige Afrikaanse digbundel by ’n hoofstroomuitgewery publiseer. Ten spyte van breë mediadekking van haar werk – wat met verskeie literêre pryse bekroon is – is daar nog betreklik min akademiese studies oor Kamfer gedoen. Simone Atangana Bekono is redelik nuut in die poësiewêreld en geen akademiese studies is nog oor haar werk onderneem nie. Dié studie is dus daarop gemik om die akademiese gapinge te vul deur ’n komparatiewe studie te doen met die aandag gefokus op die digters Ronelda Kamfer en Simone Atangana Bekono. Die swart feminisme word vernaamlik as teoretiese invalshoek gebruik gegewe die twee digters se agtergronde asook die tematiek van hul werk. Kamfer se oeuvre (Noudat slapende honde, grond/Santekraam, Hammie en Chinatown) en Bekono se debuutbundel, Hoe de eerste vonken zichtbaar waren, sal as hoofbronne in hierdie tesis dien. Tesame met die voorafgenoemde sal daar ook verskeie sekondêre bronne en artikels wat swart feminisme, postkolonialisme, die stem van die gemarginaliseerde en ook komparatisme in die letterkunde ondersoek, gebruik word. / South Africa

For decades now, the Appalachian community has been internally combatting two equally strong feelings—an inherently rich love of the mountains and a conflicting urge to leave the mountains. In recent years, Appalachian writers have produced a new literary tradition of identifying, discussing, and remedying this dilemma. Jim Wayne Miller’s 1997 The Brier Poems unapologetically explores the Appalachian community’s complicated relationship to its region. bell hooks’ 2012 Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place and Savannah Sipple’s 2019 WWJD and Other Poems then expand Miller’s exploration as both hooks and Sipple collectively represent voices that have often been left out of the stereotypical Appalachian narrative; their literature widens the lens of Appalachian experience and repositions the importance of the Appalachian canon. hooks and Sipple are contemporaries in conversation with Miller as all three authors have declared the Appalachian experience to have never been hegemonic—reclaiming, embracing, and uniting a modern Appalachian identity.

This essay analyses the life of Joyce, the protagonist in “Somewhere in England”, the fourth section of Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips, using an intersectional feminist perspective. It attempts to show how patriarchy, classism, and racism intersect to shape Joyce’s life and to limit her possibilities. The essay argues that at the beginning, Joyce is too naïve to fully understand the power structures prevailing in her society, and therefore, she is different from those around her. However, she successively experiences not only patriarchal oppression but also class and race oppressions. The result is that Joyce accepts her social position when she understands that it is difficult for an individual woman to challenge the intersected multiple oppressions of the capitalist, supremacist, patriarchal society.

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This essay concerns Purple Hibiscus and Kambili's emotional development, and explores how violence, submission and emotional dependence along with a traditional feminine gender role can hinder acknowledgement of trauma. I propose that Kambili is encouraged to take on a culturally expected feminine gender role, and her submissive disposition is discussed and connected to her constant search for a father figure. The notion of personal and collective postcolonial trauma is explained and applied to contextualise her inability to question either her father or the political situation in Nigeria. I read Kambili's change as negative and aim to show that she has internalised patriarchal structures. Her change is contrasted to the change in her brother Jaja, to show how and why they develop in different directions. Traditional gender roles are discussed from a rather general perspective, but also in a context that concern masculinity, violence and power relations.