The purpose of the current study was to explore the relation between a culture specific theory of resiliency (TRIOS: Time, Rhythm, Improvisation, Oratory & Spirituality) and sexual health outcomes (Sexual Risk History, HIV Testing & Attitudes and Beliefs, Partner Information & Condom Self-Efficacy) among Black women. Participants were 124 Black women recruited from a larger sexual health intervention study. TRIOS was hypothesized to be correlated with outcomes and predict unique variance in outcomes beyond measures of Self-Esteem & Racial Identity. Time, Improvisation and Spirituality were hypothesized to uniquely predict limited sexual risk history, healthy HIV testing attitudes and beliefs, fewer risk indicators among sex partners, & higher condom self efficacy. The psychometric structure of TRIOS within the sample was examined. Tests included a Correlation Matrix, two sets of four Hierarchical Regressions and an Exploratory Factor Analysis. Correlations were found between TRIOS components and Sexual Risk History and Condom Self-Efficacy. Time and Improvisation uniquely predicted declines in Risky Sexual History. Rhythm uniquely predicted declines in Condom Self-Efficacy. Effects of Oratory were mixed. Methodological limitations and implications for interventions and future research were discussed.

This dissertation uses discursive formation as the methodological approach to examine representations of Indian Christians in eleven Bollywood movies released during the 2004-2014 decade. The decade witnessed the exit and eventual re-entry of the Hindu Right, and the citizenry during that period experienced centrist, liberal, and secular governance. Since the present of Indian Christianity is inextricable from a colonial past, and Bollywood emerges in response to colonialism, a postcolonial intervention in methodology and theory is undertaken. A postcolonial perspective illuminates the discourses that enable the formation of the postcolonial nation, i.e., the ways a nation imagines its culture, people, traditions, boundaries, and Others. There is a suggested relationship between the representations of Indian Christians in Bollywood movies and the decade of secular governance because the analysis is approached from the position that culture and media produce and re-produce each other. The representations of Christians in Bollywood movies are a product of contemporary and historical cultural, legal, political, and social discourses. This dissertation demonstrates that representations of Christians as hypersexual women and emasculated men within an emergent Hindu modernity discursively constructs India as a Hindu nation, and Christians as the westernized Other. The theoretical contributions pertain to belonging in the nation through homonationalism and hypersexualization; the relationship between democratic representations and media; the postcolonial ambivalent identity of the Bollywood industry because of way it represents Indian Christians in response to colonialism; and the Indian Christian community’s postcolonial identity as a way to make sense of their contemporary and historical identity.

Women of color are still trapped in the colonialist trajectory of Delacroix’s sexualized Women of Algiers (1834) and alienated from the world of Sargent’s Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882) in contemporary media images that serve to exocitize, fetishize, and commodify non-white female bodies. These historical and contemporary images form a psychological weight both imposed on women of color by outside perceptions and by now-cemented internal perceptions. While women do not passively absorb media images, it cannot be ignored that the hypersexual Asian/American woman in representation “haunts the experiences and perceptions of Asian women” despite attempts to reject these images and efforts to identify empowering aspects of images of sexual power (Shimizu 2007). Ideas and expectations of sexual openness in women of color seep into our consciousness at many moments in our personal lives and cast doubt on Asian/American women’s engagements with sexuality. Resistance of and escape from objectification as an erotic racial signifier of difference are attempted through abstraction and self portraiture.

Cette thèse identifie une cooccurrence des discours à propos de l’hypersexualisation des jeunes filles et ceux concernant le port du voile islamique qui sont, depuis quelques années, au cœur des préoccupations sociales au Québec comme ailleurs en Occident. Plus spécifiquement, elle propose une « économie générale des discours » (Foucault, 1976) contemporains sur l’hypersexualisation et le port du voile, dans une perspective conjoncturelle, par et à travers trois contextes d'analyse particuliers : féministe, médiatique et public. Elle démontre comment l’hypersexualisation et le port du voile sont problématisés (Foucault, 2001/1984), c'est-à-dire qu’ils sont posés comme nouveaux problèmes sociaux engendrant et cristallisant bon nombre de craintes et d’anxiétés contemporaines. Ainsi, la thèse est composée de trois chapitres centraux qui reprennent chacun des contextes de problématisation identifiés. Le chapitre intitulé « Féminisme(s) et égalité des sexes », avance que l’égalité des sexes est invoquée comme valeur moderne, féministe et québécoise par excellence et qu’elle participe, à ce titre, de la problématisation du port du voile et de l’hypersexualisation. Le chapitre suivant, « Médias, diversité et (hyper) visibilité », concentre l’analyse sur les médias et la culture populaire, à la fois sujets énonciateurs, régimes et objets de discours, participant à construire et à délimiter l’adolescence et la religion/culture musulmane comme des mondes à part, mystérieux, tout en les exposant au public. Enfin, à partir d’une analyse des discours publics à propos de l’hypersexualisation et du port du voile, le chapitre intitulé « Laïcité, sexualité et neutralité » met en lumière les façons par lesquelles ces problèmes sont constitutifs de chartes, de codes et d’autres formes de règlementations qui viennent non seulement normaliser mais également discipliner la conduite de chacun, au nom du bien commun et de la neutralité de l’État. Un « Retour sur la conjoncture » vient conclure la thèse en mettant en lumière certains éléments conjoncturels qui traversent ses principaux chapitres, dont les questions du consensus et de l’extrême. / This dissertation identifies a co-occurrence between the discourses about girl’s ‘hypersexualization’ and those regarding the ‘Islamic’ practice of veiling, which have been generating similar concerns, discourses and anxieties in Quebec as well as in most Western societies for the past years. More specifically, I propose a ‘general economy of discourses’ (Foucault, 1976) about hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing, from a conjunctural perspective, and by means of three contexts of analysis: feminist, media, and public. I demonstrate how hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing are problematized (Foucault, 2001/1984), that is to say, how they are produced as concomitant social problems. The dissertation consists of three main chapters that each takes on one of the contexts of problematization. The chapter entitled ‘Feminism(s) and Gender Equality’, argues that gender equality is invoked as the modern value par excellence within the feminist movement as in Quebec society. As such, gender equality is constitutive of the problems of hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing. The next chapter, ‘Media Diversity and (Hyper) Visibility’, focuses on the media and popular culture as both subjects and objects of discourse, which produce and define adolescence and Muslim religion/culture as worlds apart, while exposing them to the public. Finally, the chapter entitled ‘Secularism, Sexuality, and Neutrality’ analyzes the public discourses about hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing and highlights the ways in which these problems are constitutive of charters, codes of conduct and other forms of regulations, in the name of the common good and state’s neutrality. In conclusion, I provide a ‘look back’ on the conjuncture, stressing some issues that crosses the main chapters of the dissertation, such as the questions of consensus and extreme.

This research analyzed three Latina social media celebrities’ self-presentations on Instagram and focused on whether or not the content they published potentially challenges or simply perpetuates stereotypical tropes of Latinas found in mainstream media. This qualitative study took an Ideological Critical approach through a textual analysis that was informed by Feminist Theory. More specifically the research focused on: What were Latina social media celebrities self-presentations on Instagram that characterize what a Latina is? How were Latina social media celebrities self-presentations different from or similar to, mainstream stereotypical tropes for Latinas? Lastly, how do the Latina social media celebrities’ self-presentations compare and contrast, what type of themes emerged?

Cette thèse identifie une cooccurrence des discours à propos de l’hypersexualisation des jeunes filles et ceux concernant le port du voile islamique qui sont, depuis quelques années, au cœur des préoccupations sociales au Québec comme ailleurs en Occident. Plus spécifiquement, elle propose une « économie générale des discours » (Foucault, 1976) contemporains sur l’hypersexualisation et le port du voile, dans une perspective conjoncturelle, par et à travers trois contextes d'analyse particuliers : féministe, médiatique et public. Elle démontre comment l’hypersexualisation et le port du voile sont problématisés (Foucault, 2001/1984), c'est-à-dire qu’ils sont posés comme nouveaux problèmes sociaux engendrant et cristallisant bon nombre de craintes et d’anxiétés contemporaines. Ainsi, la thèse est composée de trois chapitres centraux qui reprennent chacun des contextes de problématisation identifiés. Le chapitre intitulé « Féminisme(s) et égalité des sexes », avance que l’égalité des sexes est invoquée comme valeur moderne, féministe et québécoise par excellence et qu’elle participe, à ce titre, de la problématisation du port du voile et de l’hypersexualisation. Le chapitre suivant, « Médias, diversité et (hyper) visibilité », concentre l’analyse sur les médias et la culture populaire, à la fois sujets énonciateurs, régimes et objets de discours, participant à construire et à délimiter l’adolescence et la religion/culture musulmane comme des mondes à part, mystérieux, tout en les exposant au public. Enfin, à partir d’une analyse des discours publics à propos de l’hypersexualisation et du port du voile, le chapitre intitulé « Laïcité, sexualité et neutralité » met en lumière les façons par lesquelles ces problèmes sont constitutifs de chartes, de codes et d’autres formes de règlementations qui viennent non seulement normaliser mais également discipliner la conduite de chacun, au nom du bien commun et de la neutralité de l’État. Un « Retour sur la conjoncture » vient conclure la thèse en mettant en lumière certains éléments conjoncturels qui traversent ses principaux chapitres, dont les questions du consensus et de l’extrême. / This dissertation identifies a co-occurrence between the discourses about girl’s ‘hypersexualization’ and those regarding the ‘Islamic’ practice of veiling, which have been generating similar concerns, discourses and anxieties in Quebec as well as in most Western societies for the past years. More specifically, I propose a ‘general economy of discourses’ (Foucault, 1976) about hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing, from a conjunctural perspective, and by means of three contexts of analysis: feminist, media, and public. I demonstrate how hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing are problematized (Foucault, 2001/1984), that is to say, how they are produced as concomitant social problems. The dissertation consists of three main chapters that each takes on one of the contexts of problematization. The chapter entitled ‘Feminism(s) and Gender Equality’, argues that gender equality is invoked as the modern value par excellence within the feminist movement as in Quebec society. As such, gender equality is constitutive of the problems of hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing. The next chapter, ‘Media Diversity and (Hyper) Visibility’, focuses on the media and popular culture as both subjects and objects of discourse, which produce and define adolescence and Muslim religion/culture as worlds apart, while exposing them to the public. Finally, the chapter entitled ‘Secularism, Sexuality, and Neutrality’ analyzes the public discourses about hypersexualization and headscarf-wearing and highlights the ways in which these problems are constitutive of charters, codes of conduct and other forms of regulations, in the name of the common good and state’s neutrality. In conclusion, I provide a ‘look back’ on the conjuncture, stressing some issues that crosses the main chapters of the dissertation, such as the questions of consensus and extreme.

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