My thesis proposes a feminist-queer reading of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in response to Julian Wolfreys’ “The ‘Endlesse Worke’ of Transgression”. I examine the challenges to male authority that the low-born poet, Spenser, faced when he presented his manual for the formation of new English subjects to his sovereign queen, Elizabeth I. The Prefatory Letter to Raleigh and passages from the 1590 version of the epic provide evidence to support the view that traditional hierarchical male/female binaries may have been destabilized by the presence of an unmarried queen. My thesis also supplements Wolfreys’ essay with historical information regarding Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart in order to underscore the ethnocentric aspect of the process of “othering” that takes place in The Faerie Queene.

This dissertation engages the question of what a queer aesthetics might look like in the context of contemporary music composition. Starting with a discussion of the problematics of “defining” queer (aesthetic) practices, I look at Pauline Oliveros’ 𝘚𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘔𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, Julius Eastman’s 𝘎𝘢𝘺 𝘎𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘢 and Neo Hülcker’s 𝘈 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘺. 𝘍𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 to uncover particular resistant and subversive strategies present in their works. In addition to a close examination of the original score materials, I look into queer theories and writings from fields other than music, such as dance/performance and the visual arts, in order to identify and apply some of the traits that could be called queer aesthetics (or practices/methodologies) to the field of contemporary music composition. Among the topics discussed will be considerations on time/timing, utopia/futurity, professionalism/failure, queer subject matter and form/format. Avoiding the trap of closing in on a canonization of queer music practices, it is the stated goal of this dissertation to expand the framework and contribute to a new understanding of what queer composition within the context of Western classical music might look like.

Many prospective teachers make assumptions about their students before they actually begin teaching. Many of these assumptions can be rooted specifically in students’ races, cultures, classes, religions, genders, and sexual orientations. In order for prospective mathematics teachers to challenge these biases, some mathematics teacher educators have provided tasks to support these prospective teachers in becoming aware of their own biases. I chose to analyze a group of five prospective mathematics teachers discussing topics of teaching for social justice to examine more closely the kinds of biases they carry, and more specifically, how those biases came about in their conversations. My analysis also involved looking specifically at whether or not these prospective mathematics teachers were challenging their own as well as others’ biases that came out during the discussions. The results of this study display the ways in which these biases were illuminated during the group discussions as well as the lack of prospective teachers challenging the biases that came out.

Monogamy is recognized as a singularly accepted relationship construct within the United States. As a result, little is understood about alternative relationship constructs and those who choose them. Even less is understood regarding these practices among members of marginalized communities. Despite this lack of knowledge, there is evidence to suggest that approximately 4-5% of the United States population is engaged in some form of consensually nonmonogamous relationship pairing (a percentage comparable to the LGBTQAI community), and an estimated 25% of the population will engage in some form of consensual nonmonogamy over the course of their lifespan. This study looked to understand the lived experiences of African American men and women in married or cohabitating relationships who have participated in consensually nonmonogamous relationships with secondary partners. This qualitative study was conducted with 3 African American heteronormative married couples, using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and a combined theoretical framework which includes symbolic interactionism and queer theory. Study findings concluded that consensually nonmonogamous couples viewed consensual nonmonogamy as an orientation as opposed to a lived experience in which their primary relationship remained their priority. Emerging themes included rules related to consensual nonmonogamy, emotional regulation, stigma, and the intersectionality between race and sexuality. Implications for social change include reduced stigma related to nontraditional families, a more informed understanding of practices and experiences involving consensual nonmonogamy and the development of sociopolitical interventions, policy and advocacy, and positive and negative consequences of consensually nonmonogamous experiences.

This paper aims to shed light on the intersex infant, a baby born with an unclear gender. The main goal of the paper is to discuss whether unnecessary gender normalizing surgeries on infants, also called intersex genital mutilation (IGM) that is not necessary to preserve the life or physical health of the infant is in the best interest of the child. Legal method will be used to frame the topic in a legal context and discourse analysis in combination with content analysis will be applied in order to understand the transformation of intersex, from being a social emergency to becoming a human rights issue. The use of the concept, the best interest of the child will serve as an analytical framework together with a theoretical framework consisting of queer theory. Together it will help to map out the human rights challenges regarding IGM as a socially constructed medical product that needs to be highlighted and prevented in order to secure the rights of the child. Hopefully, the concluding results will contribute to further awareness on the issue of unnecessary infant intersex surgery and frame it in a human rights context.

This essay explores how anti-normativity is achieved in Veronica Roth's novel Carve the Mark and uses Lois Lowry's The Giver and Ursula K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness as points of comparison. It examines if Roth, Lowry, and Le Guin follow through with creating characters that are more than superficially queer by destabilizing gender and traditional attitudes towards identity markers. Using queer theory and gender performativity theory, this essay examines if the queerness of the characters and their relationships hold up when juxtaposed to normativity. When exploring the novels, it can be seen that these authors fail to create characters and relationships that are anything but superficially queer.

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Gränsöverskridande könsidentiteter - Att definieras som normativ eller icke- normativ individ i det forntida samhället. Gender Non- Conforming identities- To be defined as an normative or non- normative person in the prehistorical society. How can we see Gender Non- Conforming identities in the archaelogical context? And what do these individuals tell us about the prehistorical society? This study of three individuals from prehistoic anf historic context that may or may not have been percived as Gender Non- Conforming in the past according to archaeological studies. Keyword: Gender Non- Conforming identites, Queer-theory, Dannikewoman, Birkaworrior, Oleneostrovski mogilinik, Sharmanism

This thesis explores a Qing dynasty collection of stories about ghosts and other strange events written by Yuan Mei (1716–1798). The thesis focuses on a number of stories about possession of living persons by spirits, which are studied with the help of Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology. By studying stories in which the living and the dead and men and women’s identities overlap while they are possessed, we gain greater understanding about hierarchical relations during Qing dynasty, and how these stories both support and question these. / Uppsatsen studerar en samling av berättelser om spöken och andra ovanliga händelser skriven av Yuan Mei (1716–1798) under Qingdynastin i Kina. Uppsatsen fokuserar på ett antal berättelser där andar tagit en människa i besittning, som studeras med hjälp av Sara Ahmeds queer fenomenologi. Genom att studera berättelser om de levande och döda samt män och kvinnor vars identiteter överlappar vid besittningar, får vi bättre förståelse över hierarkiska relationer under Qingdynastin och hur berättelserna både stödjer och ifrågasätter dessa.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / The queer natural law is an ethical framework at the intersection of queer theory, queer theology, and the natural law ethical tradition largely used in Roman Catholic moral theology. As a framework, queer natural law adopts the eudaimonist, realist, and teleological emphases of the natural law virtue ethics tradition exemplified by Thomas Aquinas and restored by revisionist natural lawyers, and it refines the operations of these normative emphases through queer theory’s critical investigation of conceptual normativity. Conceived as a dynamic dialectical enterprise, queer theory offers to the natural law tradition a toolset for a more comprehensive assessment of human nature, specifically by taking a critical look at the operation of heteronormativity in normative frameworks. Symbiotically, the natural law tradition offers to queer theory a scaffold for conceiving of an ethics based in equality and nondiscrimination that allows queer theory’s ethical impulses to avoid postmodernity’s tendency towards circularity in ethical reasoning, precisely by grounding queer theory’s ethical motivations in a participatory discourse based in universal human goods. Using sexuality as a test case, this dissertation proceeds in four chapters. In the first, the notion of a queer natural law is explained in more detail. In the second, an account of human flourishing compatible with the queer natural law is articulated. In the third, a review of two natural law accounts of sexuality—magisterial and revisionist—is conducted. In the fourth and final chapter, differences between a revisionist natural law account of sexuality and a queer natural law account of sexuality are explored, defending the queer natural law thesis that the telos of sex is inter/personal pleasure. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.