Pacifique is a novel of trauma and recovery set in contemporary Victoria, British Columbia. Tia, the protagonist, meets Pacifique one cold February evening. Five sex- and passion-fueled nights later, a bike ride ends with Tia's head colliding with concrete. When she wakes, Pacifique is gone. Worse, it's unclear whether Pacifique ever existed in the first place. Driven mad in the search for a woman who may be a figment of her imagination, Tia is institutionalized in a psychiatric ward. The doctors tell her she is suffering from head-injury induced psychosis; her fellow patients—including Andrew, a man with schizophrenia—urge her to forget Pacifique. Told in chapters alternating between Tia's and Andrew's points of view, the novel keeps readers asking: is Pacifique real? The novel examines notions of credibility and truth: whom to believe? The medical establishment or the “patients”? The novel also examines how behaviour outside the heteronormative—particularly “obsessive” behaviour or “fantasies”—are pathologized in our culture. Fundamentally, the novel is a story about the thin veil between fantasy and reality, about the choices we make to be happy—and how these choices cannot always coexist. Inspired by Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, Holly Luhning’s Quiver and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Pacifique can be situated within the psychological thriller genre in the way it plays with the notion of reality and alternate realities.

The main purpose of this thesis is to present and highlight the radical potential in the work of Carson McCullers, primarily through an examination of her representation of young, queer individuals. This thesis argues that McCullers forces her readers to re-think the categories of “child” and “adult” through her creation of ambiguously gendered, sexual child characters.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur museipedagoger på Evolutionsmuseet i Uppsala könar utställningar i samband med visningar för barn. Jag har även undersökt på vilket sätt de könar dinosaurierna och djuren. Detta har dokumenterats med hjälp av anteckningar och ljudinspelningar, som sedan har bearbetats och gått igenom. De metoder som använts har varit observationer med utgångspunkt inom queerteori och sociokulturellt perspektiv. Observationerna visade att museipedagogerna hade goda kunskaper om genus och könade inte föremålen på utställningen någon gång. Med detta arbete vill jag ge en bild av hur museipedagogers arbete med barn kan te sig, samt få upp andras ögon för hur givande och lärande det är att gå på museum tillsammans med en barngrupp. / Kulturarvet som högskolepedagogisk resurs vid Uppsala Universitet

A carnival can not be stopped! A design pedagogical study of children and norms   In Basel, the only Protestant carnival in Europe takes place. The carnival is called Fasnacht. For three days, there is a wild and uninhibited play with tradition, crossing borders and social criticism. The aim of this thesis is to expand the understanding of the concept of the carnival, and how to use it for an educational purpose. Three children from Basel have been involved in an workshop where they designed and talked about norms and power structures through the carnivalesque principle. The study is based on the questions: How can you use the carnival as a starting point for designing and talking about norms and power structures together with children? And; How can the design process support such a project? To spot this, I made arrangements for a design educational project. Based on the carnival and through the design educational project, the three children got the opportunity to let Barbie dolls go on their own carnival. The methods underlying the project is transforming design and a concept the pedagogue Paulo Friere called a Visual Voice. The workshop with the Barbie dolls became the children's visual voice - a designed figure that the children could talk about, and reflect about how they for example create their gender identity, and why the colour pink is a girl colour. During the project, the empirical material was collected in the form of field notes, log books, photographs and the children's self-designed Barbie dolls. The empirical data were then analysed and interpreted through a queer theory and by Mikhail Bakhtin's carnivalesque concepts. The study also opinions that children's play is an important factor for children's learning, and the children's play is later discussed through the carnevalesque principle. The study is portrayed at Konstfack, in the room Biblioteksgången, between 2014-01-13 and 2014 - 01-17. The artistic representation tries to highlight the children's experience of the carnival, my experience of Switzerland, and show something I found in the study, namely that the colour pink is loaded with various notions that can be linked to girls' identity..

Existing research on LBGTQ youth has focused on problem behaviors and considerably less attention has been devoted to positive developmental processes. However, positive youth development knowledge is critical to enabling researchers and practitioners to conduct work that might facilitate a successful transition to adulthood. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the transition to adulthood among LBGTQ youth. Data were generated through ethnographic techniques at an organized leisure program designed to serve LBGTQ youth and their heterosexual allies. Thematic analysis yielded three manuscripts designed for journal submission. Results of the first study enhanced understanding of the similarities and differences between queer and heterosexual development. In particular, findings indicated that traditional assumptions about markers of success and developmental assets were highly relevant to most participants. The key difference between queer and heterosexual development was that LBGTQ populations must contend with compulsory heterosexuality or the network of normative expectations and sanctions which compel individuals to be heterosexual. For instance, participants shared how they hid their sexuality often for years to avoid being labeled as different or facing harassment. I explored resistance and oppression in the leisure experiences of LBGTQ youth in the second study to further expand understanding of positive developmental processes among queer young people. Results indicated that participants resisted oppression in several ways, including creating spaces that preserved their autonomy. Others deconstructed the privilege in their lives, which enhanced their understanding of how their actions intersect with the oppression of others. In the third study, I explored features of positive developmental settings for LBGTQ youth to explore how leisure contexts might facilitate the transition to adulthood for queer youth. Two features emerged as particularly relevant: support for efficacy and mattering and integration of school, family, and community efforts. Results indicated that staff promoted social norms that respected the capabilities of all people. Further, the integration of program activities within the broader queer community led to important successes related to celebrating the heterogeneity of queer and promoting communion. I hope these manuscripts will enhance the capacity of leisure professionals to work with LBGTQ youth.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from file title page. Audrey Goodman, committee chair; Mary Hocks, Nancy Chase, committee members. Electronic text (72 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed September 17, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72).

93f. / Submitted by Suelen Reis (suziy.ellen@gmail.com) on 2013-03-25T15:12:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bittencourt%20Dissertacao%20seg.pdf: 682176 bytes, checksum: d74faf6f6b1dc47296e18dc47d5adfc9 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Fatima Cleômenis Botelho Maria (botelho@ufba.br) on 2013-04-09T14:16:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Bittencourt%20Dissertacao%20seg.pdf: 682176 bytes, checksum: d74faf6f6b1dc47296e18dc47d5adfc9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-04-09T14:16:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bittencourt%20Dissertacao%20seg.pdf: 682176 bytes, checksum: d74faf6f6b1dc47296e18dc47d5adfc9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Esta dissertação descreve o comportamento de pessoas sob vigilância eletrônica, mais especificamente dos moradores do Condomínio Vila Egípcia, situado no Caminho das Árvores, Salvador/BA, os quais têm ciência das câmeras de segurança e vigilância patrimonial por ele espalhadas. Trata do estudo de manifestações dessas performances, assim como da auto-vigilância que surge a partir de determinada estratégia de segurança eletrônica e descreve passos e posturas dessas pessoas, considerando, como performance, o seu comportamento. Sobre a contribuição desse estudo nas Artes Cênicas, a pesquisa se destaca como forma de trazer à luz estudos sobre performance, teoria queer, gênero, etnografia autoreflexiva,subjetivação e performatividade - diálogos que se entrecruzam na construção de cenas do cotidiano, quando se coloca em questão o olhar do outro. Os pontos de partida são a teoria queer e os estudos da performance, vias que possibilitaram a compreensão da alteração de comportamentos organizados estrategicamente para uma circulação pacífica, omissa e oculta no contexto urbano, virtual e social e tornaram possível o desenvolvimento do raciocínio e da análise realizada. Este trabalho re-significa procedimentos performativos ligados à cena contemporânea e contextualiza a performance em sua função teórica, na busca do entendimento da atitude de pessoas nas performances a que se refere aqui. Compreende também a auto-vigilância como afirmação e negação de pessoas inscritas em uma sociedade vigiada. A escrita performativa funciona, nesta dissertação, como possibilidade metodológica, cujo caráter de pertencimento ao objeto pesquisado constitui-se elemento fundante da análise das performances descritas e analisadas. / Salvador

This is an ethnographic audience reception study of True Blood. LGBTQ fans of True Blood were interviewed in order to understand their opinions about True Blood, what makes it queer, and whether the representations are positive or negative. Overall, the subjects found the sexual fluidity of the vampires in True Blood to be queer because they felt it transcended human sexuality. As for the representations of gay and lesbian characters, they were found to be both negative and positive, but the inclusion of such characters is what is most important. I argue that the sexual fluidity of the vampires on True Blood is not queer, and True Blood is not queer, for queer does not transcend the binary system upon which sexuality is predicated.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF CALEB MCKINLEY-PORTEE for the MASTER OF ARTS degree in COMMUNICATION STUDIES, presented on JULY 5TH, 2017 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: QUEERING THE FUTURE: EXAMINING QUEER IDENTITY IN AFROFUTURISM. MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Craig Gingrich-Philbrook This thesis examines the art aesthetic known as Afrofuturism. The research provided examines Afrofuturism in music, art, and literature. This thesis provides an example of applying Afrofuturism to performance studies within Communication Studies. This thesis contains the script to a solo performance art piece which attempts to build a bridge between performance studies and Afrofuturism, while also examining Black, Queer identity.

The aim of this thesis is to engage with current debates surrounding contemporary performance, queer theory and the body, which proffer a number of complex and contentious questions. How does queer theory work in practice, and does performance provide the ideal context for such deliberation? How do the subjective essentialisms of performance conflict with ideas of queer performativity and the deconstruction of sexual identity? Drawing upon corporeal and ontological theories of the body in conflict with queer strategic critiques, an attempt is made to articulate a problematically "essential" form of queer subjectivity in performance. By exploring the potential "origins" of a preceding queer practice in the works of Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht and Jean Genet, the work proposes that their approach to theatre and performance articulated and deployed a particularly "deviant" form of expression and aesthetic. They established an approach to theatre and performance, which has continued to inspire and influence anti-essentialist and political forms of queer performance in the new millennium. From the early struggles of lesbian and gay theatre in the politically volatile context of the seventies and early eighties, the thesis foregrounds a liberating yet problematic attempt at enabling a "transformation" in British and North American theatre in response to queer critical paradigms in the nineties. Critical paradigms that are consistently promoted as the unique "product" of a postmodem deconstructive culture, and yet derive much from the works of the early avant-garde, the experiments of the sixties and the subversive texts of post-war British theatre. The nineties have witnessed a proliferation of gay/queer-oriented performance "break through" into the populist mainstream, and the "heteronormative" culture in general. The concluding section focuses upon ideas of a queer corporeality that seeks to remap the significatory potential of the live body in performance, in conflict with discursive inscriptions that attempt to fix and regulate categories of gender and sexuality. Yet, what role does the spectator/audience play in relation to this "activated" queer form of performance? How is the gaze/reception problematised, or does it subvert the very efficacy of queer theory itself?