Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36). Also available in print.

In this collection of choreographic and performative work, I aim to investigate themes of femininity, feminine identity and the navigation of power within socially constructed gender rules. I investigate these broader themes across three separate artistic works, wherein each piece offers an alternative perspective from which to confront relevant theoretical questions and challenges. Commencing with studio-based movement research, I rely on rehearsal processes and performances to provide particular and contrastive contexts of looking at issues relating to feminine identity and female ownership of power. My research consists of three separate group, trio, and solo works. Within the group work, I pose questions of voice, agency and representation as a female artist within a male-choreographed and idealized experience. I investigate the implications of accepting androgynous artistic roles as a performer who is committed to understanding feminine performance. Connotations of "strong women" are explored in the trio. Not only does the cast consist wholly of women, but the movement explores themes of athleticism and physical power as they relate to female bodies. My solo allows for a more personal exploration of feminine identity, incorporating past and current representations of my own woman-bodied experience while examining the contradictions that surround femininity and womanhood. In this excerpt I aim to unpack the conflicting experiences of obtaining and maintaining power as a woman, and whether or not the manipulation of the sexualization of women for the regain of power signifies freedom or traps women in the social constructs of womanhood. These assembled works serve as an assortment of perspectives and contexts from which I view the complexities of what it means to exist in the female/feminine narrative—not only as a display of my own performance but as a performance of universal and multifaceted femininity.

Research on comic books has mainly focused on how issues of crime and justice are dealt with. This research seeks to extend the existing body of work to address the ways that gender is depicted in comic books. To do this, I apply the framework of “doing gender” to instances of violence in superhero comic books. I examine seventy-two comic books and ninety-eight instances of violence to understand gendered patterns in behaviors, responses, and visual depictions of violent instances and their aftermath. By collecting quantitative information on the instances of violence and qualitative information about how the instances are framed and visually presented, I find that, while men and women engage in similar behaviors, the ways in which these behaviors are presented are different.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Joni Jones. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-72).

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This project represents one of the few major pieces of research into women’s narratives of political incarceration and is an examination of first person accounts written against a backdrop of significant historical events in twentieth-century Germany. I explore the ways in which the writers use their published accounts as an attempt to come to terms with their incarceration (either during or after their imprisonment). Such an undertaking involves examining how the writer ‘performs’ femininity within the de-feminising context of prison, as well as how she negotiates her self-representation as a ‘good’ woman. The role of language as a means of empowerment within the disempowering environment of incarceration is central to this investigation. Rosa Luxemburg’s prison letters are the starting point for the project. Luxemburg was a key female political figure in twentieth-century Germany and her letters encapsulate prevalent notions about womanhood, prison, and political engagement that are perceptible in the subsequent texts of the thesis. Luise Rinser’s and Lore Wolf’s diaries from National Socialist prisons show, in their different ways, how the writer uses language to ‘survive’ prison and to constitute herself as a subject and woman in response to the loss of self experienced in incarceration. Margret Bechler’s and Elisabeth Graul’s retrospective accounts of GDR incarceration give insight into the elastic concept of both the political prisoner and the ‘good’ woman. They demonstrate their authors’ endeavours to achieve a sense of autonomy and reclaim the experience of prison using narrative. All of the narratives are examples of the role of language in resisting an imposed identity as ‘prisoner’, ‘criminal’ and object of the prison system.