The main theoretical thrust of my project involves the political uses of parodically performing shame and shaming rituals in resisting normative regulation. I argue that parodic performances of this negative affect—traditionally deployed to erase, obscure, and regulate queers—can expose how shame regulates the gender/sexuality performances of straight people as well as queers. I view this project primarily as a tactical shift from the parodic performances outlined by Judith Butler in texts like Gender Trouble, and I feel that the shift is important as a counter measure to increasing homonormative inclusion of (white, middle class) gays and lesbians into straight or neoliberal society. The first section of my thesis is dedicated to exploring theories of homonormativity. I work primarily from Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal, which is a queer polemic, and Lisa Duggan’s The Twilight of Equality, which contextualizes homonormativity in the cultural project of neoliberalism. Homonormativity is, in essence, the opening of cultural space in mainstream society for a certain group of gays and lesbians—those who are “the most assimilated, genderappropriate, politically mainstream portions of the gay population” (Duggan 44). As Warner discusses at length, the shift from queer to conservative gay interests has shifted attention from issues like HIV/AIDS research and physical protection of queers to gay marriage and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which are causes that primarily benefit the gays and lesbians already most assimilated to straight culture. Section II focuses on the work of Judith Butler and other theorizations of parody. Butler’s theory suggests that gender and sexuality consist of a set of continuously repeated performances, and that by performing gender one is constituted as a subject. Butler argues that it is impossible to step outside gender—to stop performing, as it were —because there is no agency prior to the imposition of gender. She locates the only possibility for resistance to gender as a socially regulatory myth structure in the failure to properly perform gender, or in performing in such a way that gender is exposed as always already performative. I have paired Butler’s theory with Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Parody, which examines the uses, limitations, and value of artistic parody. These two theorists, of course, have different goals, which complicates the potential for combining their work. In the final section I develop my own theory, which largely takes its cue from Butler’s notion that we can resist gender/sexuality regulation through parodic performance. But, whereas Butler argues for parodic performances of gender/sexuality, I suggest the usefulness of parodying shame and shaming rituals. Shame—the social imposition of it, as well as the desire to avoid it—has long been a force maintaining proper behavior in the largest sense, but I am concerned specifically with the regulation of gender and sexual performances. Queers (understood broadly) and women have long been the targets of shame, while straight males have long been the performers of shaming rituals—mockery, brutal laugher, violence. What I suggest is that through an appropriation and parodic reinterpretation of these shaming rituals and shame itself, queers can expose the centrality of shame in repressing not only queer existence and performance, but in restricting the performative possibilities of straight people. This new notion of performative resistance is especially important as some gays and lesbians enter straight society and become subject to its shaming restrictions, but also become complicit in shaming those queers still outside the realm of homonormative possibilities

The majority of discussions of gay and lesbian experiences in the United States associate gay culture with urban areas. However, there is still a significant population of LGBT people living in the rural United States (Baumle et al 2009). Many of these individuals identify with rural spaces and seek to maintain “country” identities. As with rural spaces, there is an assumption that Christian identities directly conflict with those of non-heterosexual identities. This study examines the ways in which these individuals create and negotiate stereotypically conflicting identities regarding their sexuality, their rural identities and their religious identities. The goal of this project is to add to currently sparse literature on rural gay Christians and give an accurate portrayal of gay Christians in rural areas. I found that the sensationalized stereotypes of what it means to be a gay Christian in the country are often far cries from the actual experiences.

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Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur homosexualitet skildras i svensk TV-reklam. Detta med anledning av mediers möjligheter till att påverka publiken samt utifrån heteronormen i samhället. För att uppfylla målet med studien har ett par frågeställningar formulerats: “Vilka diskursiva teman framkommer i resultatet och vad säger de om framställningen av homosexualitet i TV-reklam?” och “Skiljer sig framställningen av homosexualitet från framställningen av heterosexualitet och i så fall hur?”. Sex olika reklamfilmer som har visats i svensk TV under olika perioder mellan år 2012-2016 har analyserats. Studiens teoretiska ramverk utgörs av representationsteori, queerteori samt multimodal kritisk diskursanalys, förkortat MCDA. Analysarbetet grundas på MCDA som metod. Olika analysbegrepp inom metoden har använts för att utforma ett analysschema som möjliggjort analysen av materialet. Studiens resultat har delats upp i fem olika diskursiva teman. De teman som framkommit är heterosexualitet som norm, handling som bygger på homosexualitet, bred representation, homosexualitet lämnas okommenterat och frånvaro av stereotyper. Den främsta slutsatsen i studien är att heteronormen genomsyrar TV-reklam där homosexualitet framställs. Utöver detta visar studiens teman på att det inte finns några specifika stereotyper av homosexuella personer i reklamfilmerna, att homosexualitet i vissa fall används som något centralt i reklamfilmen och något som för handlingen framåt. Det förekommer även reklamfilmer när homosexualitet gestaltas, men lämnas helt okommenterat.

The aim of this study was to investigate how transgender people may experience the services that are offered by the Social Services. To fulfill the aim, the researchers decided to focus on the transgender peoples’ perspectives, and therefore chose to interview them and put them in an expert position. In this study a qualitative approach was used, and the data was gathered through two semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The main result was that the participants experienced that the Social Services sometimes might not have the right knowledge to give them proper information, sufficient support and the help they needed. Therefore, the participants often searched for information on their own, and the trust for the Social Services was unsatisfactory. One conclusion that could be drawn from this study was that the Social Services need to increase and improve their level of knowledge within this subject.

This thesis explores untheorized themes of pronatalism and childfreedom in Lithuania. Through an analysis of interviews of childfree women, I show the prevalence of a pronatalist norm in Lithuanian society, and how it’s challenged by the phenomenon of childfreedom. I examine women’s paths to childfreedom, the normative pressure they experience, and their views of their position. Pronatalist pressure transforms, when challenged by childfreedom, and especially when it is openly declared. I show that pronatalism is not easily challenged and childfreedom impacts both - the norm and the women, transgressing it. I argue that childfreedom can be seen as an act of resistance to the pronatalist norm, yet this view is restricted by significant limitations.

Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler / This work explores how Israel uses LGBTQ issues as a rhetorical device (pinkwashing) in its self-presentation and examines how American college students perceive the claim that Israel is a ‘gay haven.’ Understanding the Israel/Palestine conflict from a human rights approach, I deconstruct the racial and gendered implications of the pinkwashing campaign by analyzing literature about homonationalism, pinkwashing, and queer activism. Interviews with fifteen student leaders from Zionist, pro-Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQ organizations reveal how students engage with LGBTQ issues and the Conflict, as well as the institutional, cultural, and interactional factors that influence how organizations program. Interview analysis demonstrates that when pinkwashing occurs, some students use media, protests, and conversations to provide an alternative discourse. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that pinkwashing does happen on college campuses, and anti-pinkwashing activism occurs most often in the form of queer anti-Occupation organizing. Anti-Occupation activism necessitates an intersectional approach if it is to gain human rights for all Palestinians. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker fenomenet Pinkwashing med utgångspunkt i Stockholm Pride 2018. I den här uppsatsen används begreppet Pinkwashing för att förklara en marknadsstrategi som innebär att man använder ”queervänlighet” för att verka mer framåtsträvande men ofta med syfte att nå större ekonomiskt resultat. Studien tar stöd i teorierna Pinkwashing, CSR och CMR samt aktivism (queeraktivism). För att svara på frågerställningarna utfördes samtalsintervjuer för att undersöka hur ett urval personer förhåller sig till begreppet. Hälften av Intervjurespondenterna definierade sig som HBTQ-personer och hälften gjorde inte det. Personerna som intervjuades ansåg att exponeringen under pride är på både gott och ont men ansåg att det är viktigt att företag tar socialt ansvar och inte bara en vecka om året.

Thesis advisor: Leslie Salzinger / Over a period of eight months, I conducted an ethnographic comparative study in a northeastern metropolitan area, identifying and exploring a variety of non-normative social spaces regarding both gender and sexuality. I focus this research on comparing two different non-normative communities of gender and sexuality, the queer and the lesbian communities. By concentrating on spaces populated by those who identify as queer, I witness and discuss the process of identity formation. Negotiation of both tangible and theoretical spaces contributes to the operationalization of queer as a category of identity. Using social space bound by identity as a unifying factor, I share observations of time spent in lesbian community, where intricacies of queerness, both as critique and as category of identity, were illuminated. The meaning of the theoretical construct of queer as explained in the literature and the experience of queer as an identity within community have areas of disconnect to which I draw attention in this paper. I interpret community space as giving power and visibility to the experience of those who live outside of, or between, gender norms in an experience that is unrecognized within mainstream heteronormative culture. I found this space creates a voice for a more encompassing and liberating embodiment of gender than that found in mainstream western society with its adherence / Thesis (MA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

My dissertation brings together prose texts and poetry by four writers and poets, who published in German language at the beginning of the twentieth century: Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), and Georg Trakl (1887-1914). All four of these writers are concerned with the inadequacy of language and cognition, the so called Sprachkrise at the turn-of-the-century. In their texts, they challenge the ability of language to function as a means of communication, and as a way to express emotions or relate more deeply to the world. While it is widely recognized that this “crisis of identity” in modernist literature has been a crisis of language all along, I argue in my dissertation that the question of language is ultimately also a question of “the animal.” Other scholars have argued for animals’ poetic agency (e.g. Aaron M. Moe; Susan McHugh), or for the conceptual link between the “crisis of language” and the threat to human exceptionalism in the intellectual milieu of the early twentieth century (Kári Driscoll). My dissertation is the first study that explores the interconnection between Sprachkrise, animality, and the phenomenological philosophy of embodiment. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of phenomenology, I illustrate how Hofmannsthal, Kafka, Rilke and Trakl invoke the body as intertwined with animals in complex ways, and employ these animal figures to reconceptualize notions of language and specifically the metaphor. The authors, I argue, engage in a zoopoetic writing, as other forms of life participate as both symbolic and material bodies in the signifying processes. Moreover, I illustrate how their zoopoetic approach involve forms of intimacy and envision figures that fall outside heteronormative sexualities and ontologies, making the case for a queer zoopoetics in Modernist German literature.