<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 Brothers Grimm and the Walt Disney Company have produced popular fairy tales for large audiences. In this work, cluster criticism&mdash;a rhetorical criticism that involves identifying key terms and charting word clusters around those terms&mdash;is applied to four Grimm fairy tales and four Disney princess films. This study aims to reveal the worldview of the rhetors and explore how values present in Grimm tales manifest in contemporary Disney films. Disney princess films in this study have been categorized as &ldquo;White/European&rdquo; and &ldquo;Non-White/Cultural &lsquo;Other.&rsquo;&rdquo; Because film is a form of non-discursive rhetoric, an adaptation of cluster criticism designed for film was been applied to the selected animated features. This study reveals that many patriarchal values present in Grimm fairy tales appear in contemporary Disney films, and while Moana (2016) features far fewer displays of these values, intersectional feminism should be kept in mind, with more diversity in princesses needed.</p><p>

<p> Given the increased public enthusiasm for the genres of Horror and Science Fiction, as well as the renewed and ever-evolving interest in indie horror films (propelling them into the mainstream), there is a noticeable increase of public eagerness to consume films that toy with the ideas of anxiety and the body. While many of these films seem to fit the rubric of heteronormative and mainstream Hollywood productions that occupy a neat world of perfectly defined gender identities, we can still excavate bodies that fall outside of such neat definitions. On the one hand, we are presented with a defined female or male character, thrust into a chaotic situation through which they must endure tremendous anxiety and pain and strive to survive. On the other, these bodies seem to survive and thrive despite not fitting in with the simple heteronormative worlds in which they dwell. </p><p> The purpose of this thesis is not to provide a stand-in or voice for the queer body, nor is its purpose to create an index of films that fall under the sub-genre of &lsquo;Body Horror,&rsquo; but to explore how films in this genre that seem to privilege performances of able-bodiedness and heteronormativity actually treat queerness and queer topics in very different ways. This thesis wishes to explore these bodies as they cruise through their respective dystopian technofetishistic worlds; as their bodies are infected, their figures transformed, and their psyches liberated as they attain physical, sexual or psychological release. </p><p> To facilitate both observation and maintain its central focus, this paper will be divided into three main parts. The first chapter will define key terms and phrases that are the central focus of this paper. The second chapter will explore the concept of &lsquo;Infestation,&rsquo; which will focus on the queer and disabled bodies as they are occupied, annexed, and attacked by external forces or internal strife. This chapter will consider the concept of &lsquo;Transformation&rsquo; and further examine the manner through which the &ldquo;monstrous queer&rdquo; emerges through the definition of normalcy and the anomalous. Lastly, the final chapter will revolve around the concept of &lsquo;Liberation,&rsquo; and review these observations in terms of how these performances reconcile and imagine their own respective ideas of queer futures. This final chapter will expand the narrative of queer futurity while also dwelling on notions of the inevitable &ldquo;queer dystopia&rdquo; in &lsquo;Body Horror&rsquo; films. The voices and scholarship in the fields of Queer and Disability Studies, Psychoanalysis, and Film Studies will guide this reading as it seeks out these bodies and unearths the deeply affective, psychological, and physical states of transformation they undergo.</p>

This thesis is in two parts: a theoretical section (60%), which provides an analysis of gender identity in Surrealist film through consideration of a range of Surrealist films; and a practical section (40%), consisting of a body of original creative work (collage, film and assemblage), which builds on and is in dialogue with the theoretical insights of the research. Transformation is seen as central to a mapping and remapping of the spaces, (supposed) limits and frontiers of Surrealist notions of gender identity. In particular this thesis examines how Surrealist film makers engage with representations of men and women: problematising any single or unitary (fixed) reading but rather blurring boundaries between masculine / feminine (as process / flux) in order to deconstruct them, with the ultimate aim of criticising a society that encourages the positioning of men and women according to (binarised) patriarchal discourses. I examine the implications of these 'gender crossings' for the spectator by developing the concept of 'bisexual switching' – which posits a mobile spectator who actively negotiates the various (gender) positions / identities in a kind of dialogue with the text and film maker. Practice, is understood here as a dynamic, integral part of the production of meaning, providing new ways of reflecting upon texts and the processes (such as spectatorship) by which we engage with them. It is argued that this approach is in keeping with the notion of Surrealism as a form of research conducted by artist-researchers, wherein the artworks created are not to be viewed in aesthetic terms but rather as research tools or documents of the research. Following the discussion of the case study films I engage with my own practice in relation to the former, as a series of interlocking dialogues, confirming and challenging the findings of the written thesis (and practice), offering new perspectives on gender identity in Surrealist film.

<p> Horror films, like any cultural product, are a result of their time and place in the world. The traditional reading of horror films focuses primarily on the negative treatment of women. However, there are some moments of resistance that allow for a strong female representation. As the horror film is a genre that targets primarily the youth market, some of these women step beyond the traditional cannon fodder and emerge as feminist role models. Over time the ways and means by which women stepped out of the shadows in the horror genre changed. These changes can in part be traced to the larger societal movements of their era, including Second and Third Wave Feminism. By looking at specific films and how they defined the horror genre over three decades, the impact of larger societal movements can be seen, as can the changing space of women within the genre. From the 1970s the films explored are: <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> (Tobe Hooper, 1974), to <i>Carrie</i> (Brian DePalma, 1976), and <i>Alien</i> (Ridley Scott, 1979). From the 1980s the films used are: <i>Friday the 13th</i> (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980), <i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i> (Wes Craven, 1984), and <i> Aliens</i> (James Cameron, 1986). The 1990s films examined are: <i> The Silence of the Lambs</i> (Jonathan Demme, 1991), <i>New Nightmare </i> (Wes Craven, 1994), and <i>Scream</i> (Wes Craven, 1996). Over the course of the decades and through these films this work demonstrates the historical links to how women are portrayed in the horror film, their relationship to the genre as a whole, and the feminist movements of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. In tracing these moments of resistance this work illuminates why these characters have withstood the test of time and why audiences continue to flock to horror films.</p>

This dissertation is an investigation of the spatial and temporal Othering of subjects, characters, and themes in German-language film and literature by means of a series of case studies, which illustrate a certain kind of alterity. This work offers a classification for a new type of Othering based on the interactions among gender, sexuality, and a notion of home or belonging. Heimosexuality, this kind of Othering, can appear when certain conditions are met: new bodies (corporeal constructions) will result from the combination of gender-sexual behaviors with notions of “home” and the pressures of abjection. The entities that emerge from this process operate in various spatiotemporalities, fusions of space and time with Otherness (allospaces and allotimes). Building on Sigmund Freud’s idea of the uncanny, chapter one provides and introduction to and foundation for the theoretical concepts employed throughout the dissertation by presenting a unique combination of phenomenological, psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theories. ^ The following chapters demonstrate the application of these concepts to four main cultural products. Chapter two argues that the characters in Frank Wedekind’s play, “Frühlings Erwachen” (1891), affect/effect each other’s bodies and sexual identities, as the adolescent characters demonstrate the polymorphous nature of corporeal eroticism and its dependence on national ideas of respectability. Chapter three is an analysis of Robert Musil’s novel, Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß (1906), in which Foucauldian disciplinary power, colored by ideas of cultural propriety and social fitness, mold the sexualized and gendered methods by which privileged young men subjugate their surroundings. Chapter four is an examination of Kutlug Ataman’s film, Lola und Bilidikid (1999), in which “majority Germans” and “minority Germans” affect each other’s attempts to construct a home despite obstacles of race, gender, and sexuality. Chapter five examines Pierre Sanoussi-Bliss’s film, Zurück auf los (2000), and its presentation of the re-temporalization of its Afro-German, HIV-positive, gay protagonist. Chapter six, the conclusion, builds on the theory presented in chapter one and posits the simulacral nature of identity categories, including that of belonging, whether Othering takes place in a national or anational or post-national setting. ^

My dissertation investigates the textual, intertextual, and contextual aspects of the Asian films that I identify as the 'New' Asian female ghost films; I focus closely on the films' visualizations of the monstrous feminine and other gendered/gendering representations. I examine how the Asian countries' traditions of female ghost filmmaking, cultural heritages (such as the religions of Buddhism and Confucianism, folktales, legends, myths, plays, and paintings), and other generic conventions for cinematic horror influence the particular 'hybrid' representational modes of the 'monstrous-feminine' in the 'New' Asian female ghost films. My dissertation also considers the ways in which the newly-revived female ghost films in East Asia and some Southeast Asian countries reflect the local people's anxieties about the 'compressed modernity' that resulted from the Asian economic crisis and some gendered parts of the relevant social discourse. In terms of the Asian genre's hybridity, I examine this significant feature as one of the grounds to explain the films' global popularity, especially in relation to the current trend of Hollywood's remaking of the Asian films. My dissertation, through a case study of four 'New' Asian female ghost films (Ju-On, Shutter, The Eye, A Tale of Two Sisters), responds to the question of how the discussed historical and contextual elements involved with the emergence and development of the 'New' Asian female ghost films and the culturally reciprocal relationships of the Asian films with other American/Western horror films are concretely reflected in the gender representations present in the individual films. I also analyze the American remakes of the four Asian films for the purpose of exploring the specific transformations that take place in the reworked versions, especially in terms of the monstrous feminine images and other representations divided along the lines of sex and gender. I postulate several factors that have influenced the transformations, such as the involved producers' and filmmakers' own readings of the differences and otherness in the original Asian texts; these individuals' own knowledge and assumptions about honor filmmaking; Hollywood conventions of the cinematic horror genre; and Western ideas about the geopolitical place of Asia: Asian cities and nations, and Asian women.

This study investigates the transitioning terms of lesbian visibility and identity in the distinctive spatio-temporal context of Northampton, Massachusetts in the 1980s. Drawing on interviews with a diversified sampling of lesbian-, bisexual-, and queer-identified participants, I consider the coalescing of two lesbian communal formations – a social community and a social audience – as mediating sites for the interrelations between subculture and dominant culture. Informed by the literatures and methods of queer theory, cultural studies, and feminist film criticism, I examine the 1980s queer crossover from lesbian subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation by the end of the decade. The 1980s crossover was a constellation of interlocking factors manifested through the entrance into national visibility of gay liberatory and feminist politics, the incorporation of overt lesbian sexuality into Hollywood and independent films, and the surfacing of the conservative and feminist backlashes alongside “Reaganomics.” These converged in an anti-lesbian backlash produced in Northampton in the 1980s through the interrelations between the rapid revitalization of the city’s downtown and the increasing visibility and concentration of the lesbian population. The emergence into public visibility of a lesbian social community and a lesbian social audience in 1980s Northampton prefigured questions about the desirability of a goal of cultural assimilation for lesbian and gay people along with concerns about the role of consumption in the assimilative process that were to become important to LGBT politics in the 1990s and 2000s. In this project, I consider the multidimensional and conflictual aspects of assimilation as well as the gender-specificities of lesbian film consumption and the lesbian Sex Wars as part of the crossover from subcultural separatism to mitigated assimilation. In spite of the strides in the acceptance of the lesbian population in Northampton in the 1980s, I argue that such changes were laden with tensions negotiated through the contradictions between appearances of tolerance and acceptance versus experiences of discrimination and violence. The constellation of factors that manifested in the 1980s queer crossover provided symbolic materials not only for a realignment of lesbian subjectivity, but also for a realignment of heterosexual subjectivity.

Going against phalloculocentrism’s situation in a hom(m)o-sexual paradigm and structuration of the male gaze and moving towards a gyneacentric perspective, the thesis explores how a feminised process of reception and interaction with artworks might arise. My installation and moving-image practice-led research is driven by a central question: How might a feminised form of spatiality, based on a gyneacentric model, deform an audience’s phalloculocentric reading of an artwork? The purpose of this thesis is to find a practice-led feminist method of producing an artwork that actively represents the feminine and de-centres an audience’s (male) gaze. By dislocating the eye from the lens of a camera, I propose to alter an audience’s usual cinematic experience of an image of the feminine through my artwork. This is developed through my proposition for composing an experience of her image through inter-relational exchanges in order to shift the register of reception from gazing to “touching”. I claim this could provide a potential for an embodied feminised process of spatiality and perception. A method of cartographically mapping the feminine through diagrams, photographs, drawings and video is developed in the preparation and installation of the central artwork that structures the thesis, (f)low visibility, in a nightclub. Feminist (installation and video) practitioners’, Martha Rosler, Louise Bourgeois, Mona Hatoum and Pipilotti Rist, approaches to representing the feminine are also investigated. The preparatory designs attempt to subvert the potential for a voyeuristic reception and/or exhibitionistic composition of the installation. This forms an investigation into how the reception and interaction with a feminised image might arise through a tactile process of exploration. I propose that although (f)low visibility produced ungraspable feminised on-screen images it afforded embodied partially locatable inter-relational exchanges in its reception of her. Luce Irigaray’s and Donna Haraway’s theories of embodiment are developed and intertwined in my conclusion. I claim that interaction with and reception of monstrous cyborg images on-screen occurred through the navigation of a fantasy of intrauterine “touching” in (f)low visibility’s installation as a feminised process of spatiality.

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