This essay aims to examine how fan fiction texts and the digital non-profit platform Archive of Our Own can provide queer separatist spaces for reorienting cis- and heteronormativity as well as how that is manifest in the published stories. It does so through an analysis of the platform’s design and accessibility and through a reading of two short stories from the collection QUEER CONVERSATIONS by the pen name heliosole. Results include that the platform makes space for non-normative stories by being free of use, its equality between moderators, writers, and users, its tradition of education and resistance, by making writing accessible and collaborative, using famous characters’ voices for speaking comforting truths and by challenging norms regarding sexuality and temporality.

Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and a discourse analysis of academic publications this study explores the definition of indie video games, relationships between queer players and indie video games that they play, and ways in which queer players relate to games in general. The comparison of definitions between academic publications and player interviews shows that “indie” is a vague term that is too broad to define, either relying upon modes of production or becoming impossibly narrow in attempts to describe indie game trends. Instead, a more productive point of discussion seems to be located around affect typical for genres and categories of games, with modes of production being an important but not defining part of the conversation. / Media Studies & Production

Jericho Brown's The Tradition (2019), which won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, includes four duplexes, a poetic form of Brown's own invention that combines the sonnet and the blues. Made of fourteen lines separated into seven couplets, the duplex is a complex structure comprised of sets of indents and repeated lines. Brown's use of disparate source forms to create a new form altogether challenges the supremacy of a singular, white American literary tradition, putting it into conversation with other traditions in order to critique its historically racist and heterosexist boundaries. As he does so, Brown works not to abolish "the tradition" or canon, but to expand it beyond reductive ideas of who and what is allowed into this historically exclusive space. The complexity of Brown's formal project mirrors the nuanced and critical hope the duplex form expresses and evokes in readers; in contrast to queer theory's long focus on negativity, Brown's duplexes align themselves with the work of José Muñoz and Mari Ruti, who assert that hope is equally as important as negativity, as they hold the positive and negative together in both form and content. The duplex seeks to expand emotional experience as well as the canon, ultimately attempting to change the way readers feel and act.

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This essay analyzes how the films Less Than Zero and The Doom Generation intersect with their overlapping themes regarding sex, sexuality, and death. The intended goal of the readings in this essay is to examine how queerness was represented in film during the AIDS crisis, specifically through the feature of a sexually fluid trio of friends. It first identifies the common elements of both films, including the gender makeup of the friend group, ambiguous or unrealized queerness, the role of the car in sexual desire, and themes of death and demise. The essay then considers the context of the AIDS crisis and 80s conservatism, Lacanian ethics, and queer theory to dissect how these elements and themes are explored in opposing ways. My central argument then is that Less Than Zero uses these narrative elements in problematic ways to condemn its queer character and, subsequently, queer audiences, while The Doom Generation uses these elements to offer a more respectful and sympathetic view of its queer characters and audiences. This essay stands as another example of queer analysis conducted by a queer researcher to place both Less Than Zero and The Doom Generation in a unique conversation with one another as similar, though ultimately opposing films.

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The purpose of this research is to examine how masculinity is represented on Vogue’s front covers in 2020 and to what extent it differentiates from the cover in 1992. To do so, a visual analysis with a semiotic approach has been made where applied theory about queer and representation is used to analyze and discuss the development of masculinity over time. Furthermore, a comparative analysis has been made to point out how masculinity is represented differently from the cover in 1992 to the cover in 2020. The main findings were that Vogue’s representation of masculinity has gone through a vast development. In 1992, masculinity was represented in a stereotypical and gender normative way where the man dominates and acts protective towards the woman. This cover does not have an inclusive representation of masculinity. In comparison, the cover in 2020 represents a social constructivist approach and gender norms are more fluid. Thus, the cover challenges the hetero normative view on gender, which makes it appear more including.