My project explores the role of affective bonds of a sexual, romantic, and/or mentoring nature between male warriors in the production and maintenance of warrior identity during Japan's Warring States (1467–1603) period. Employing the notion of queer reading as a guiding principle, I examine the traces of intimate bonds between male warriors left behind in poetry, love oaths, personal correspondence, and other documents. I argue that male-male warrior intimacy played a central role, often undervalued by historians due to the conventional disciplinary emphasis on male-female marriage, in the construction of warrior retainer bands and the establishment of warrior alliances. Ranging from the purely hierarchical to the overtly sexual, relationships between warrior youths and their relatively older lords reproduced and reinforced warrior identity, through their violent oathing rituals, recreational activities, and function as a site for cultivating future trusted retainers. A young subordinate could also take advantage of the attention and trust given to him by making demands of his ostensible superior, disrupting the power asymmetries of the lord/retainer bond, or even by openly plotting a rebellion In considering warrior intimacy, the project occasions a reevaluation of the unification process that marks the Warring States period’s central narrative. I contend that the conventional interpretation, which relies on the trope of the Three Unifiers, minimizes the influence of male-male ties on events that effected significant historical change at the macro level, including the circumstances that enabled the Tokugawa clan’s ultimate victory, their vision of the social order, and the form of their sacred authority. I also explore the legacy of these bonds in the Edo period (1603–1868), repurposed as ideals of warrior masculinity and loyal retainership by both samurai attempting to find new purpose in a time of peace and commoners enjoying their newfound wealth and leisure time. Each chapter focuses on an influential warlord and his younger retainer: Ōuchi Yoshitaka (1507–1551) and Sue Harukata (1521–1555); Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) and Gensuke (dates unknown); and Date Masamune (1567–1636) and Tadano Sakujūrō Katsuyoshi (dates unknown), respectively.

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This is a discourse analysis of three WebPages which topic is sexual information. Our purpose is to examine the WebPages RFSL (The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights), RFSU (The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education) and UMO (Reception for young people) from a queer theoretical perspective and illustrate how they discuss the subjects’ gender, sexual preference and sexual limits. Our questions are; what information about gender, sexual preference and sexual limits are presented on the WebPages RFSU, RFSL and UMO, and what similarities and differences can be identified and how can these be analyzed from a queer perspective? Our material was collected from the three WebPages and categorized according to three topics of interest; gender, sexual preference and sexual limits. Our analyses are based on queer theory and former research in the field. We found a number of topics and interesting information which were categorized under new headlines. Our conclusion is that the topics mentioned on the WebPages are in most of the cases homogenous. On the theme gender we found that the categories man and woman were prominent. In the discussion about gender we found that all three WebPages only wrote about hetero-, homo- and bisexuality. None of the WebPages write about subjects whom concern the theme sexual limits. All WebPages write about hetero norms and are questioning them.

This study searches twenty composition readers' table of contents for the degree of inclusivity of queer people and issues. Four means of erasure are labeled as possible erasing of queer identity: presuming heteronormativity, overt homophobia, perpetuating tokenism, and pathologizing queer identity. The presence of other differences are compared to the number of times that queer identity is referenced in the table of contents. The final portion of the analysis examines the two most inclusive composition readers to understand more clearly how the readers present queer individuals and issues. In a sense, I want to explore the question of how often queer people are discussed or addressed and in what forms within these composition readers. My hope is to develop a means for instructors and students to investigate whether or not, and in what ways a composition reader prescribes presence for the queer individual.

Due to disproportionate violence impacting the trans community, forensic anthropologists may increasingly encounter the remains of trans and non-binary individuals; however, it is presently unknown how often trans remains are represented in casework and if practitioners have sufficient knowledge about trans personhoods. After contextualizing forensically relevant demographics for the trans community, this study uses anonymous survey data of forensic anthropologists to explore the collective knowledge of and experience working with trans remains; practitioners’ perceptions of sex and gender; and potential opportunities for trans-oriented research in forensic anthropology. The results indicate that 28.9% of respondents have worked with trans remains in casework, but 75.0% of forensic anthropologists were unfamiliar with trans-related surgical procedures. Additionally, the survey indicates that forensic anthropologists struggle with the binary nature of forensic sex estimation, with 42.4% agreeing that sex is binary and 56.2% disagreeing. Similar opposition was found with reporting gender: 39.5% indicated that gender should be reported in casework and 31.0% disagreed. Moreover, current sex estimation methods and reporting are: rigidly binary; not reflective of human biological variation; and inadequate for trans and non-binary individuals. In order to dismantle rigidly binary sex categorization, we propose the adoption of a biocultural and queer theoretical approach to forensic sex estimation and in sexual dimorphism research that challenges heteronormative assumptions, questions typological two-sex categorization, and combats the presumptions that gender and sex are stable, independent entities that convey universal meaning. Relatedly, trans-oriented research, which is supported by 95.8% of respondents, will further improve methodological accuracies. / 2022-02-23T00:00:00Z

In this essay, I study ambivalence in Pär Lagerkvist's (1891–1974) novel The Dwarf (1944). The ambivalence is primarily expressed through Lagerkvist's use of contrasts, and enhanced by the unreliable narrator. At first glance, the contrasts might be perceived as binary oppositions, but I aim to illustrate how boundaries are dissolved, and I argue that the contrasts cannot in fact be seen as opposites. Instead, a non-binary perspective is required. Inspired primarily by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler, I use a queer reparative reading as my starting point. The analysis focuses specifically on four examples of contrasts that I claim are most prominent in the novel: love–hate, closeness–distance, superiority–inferiority, and good–evil. Although the protagonist is confused by the dissolved boundaries between these, he is the one who embodies them the most. He might seem as a hateful, inferior, and evil character who wants to maintain distance from everyone else. However, he is not inferior all the time and he also expresses more loving feelings and shows a desire to be close to others. This raises the question whether he truly is evil or if his actions are simply the result of being mistreated. Reading the novel from a non-binary perspective thus proves that we can never reach any definitive answers. Rather, we are forced to continue asking important, difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable questions.

Thesis advisor: M. Shawn Copeland / Thesis advisor: Amy Hollywood / This dissertation offers a constructive theological reflection on transformational anger. It proposes two theories of transformational anger that aim to contribute to the alleviation of suffering in marginalized communities, especially those marginalized by sex, sexuality and gender. First it proposes a theory of the transformational power of anger drawn from the work of Judith Butler; second, it demonstrates that there is also a theory concerning the transformational anger of the meditative body in the work of Julian of Norwich. While Julian's and Butler's theories have distinct merits, I fuse the two in order to propose a third theory of transformational anger that integrates Butler's theories with Julian's meditative training of the mind and body. Chapters 1 through 3 investigate the work of Judith Butler to show how she articulates new relationships between anger and subjectivity, ones that alleviate suffering. Chapter 1 outlines several important concepts as background for Butler's theories of anger. These include her ideas about gender binaries, genealogy, the materialization of reason, and scenography. Butler shows that a series of binaries--which may seem at first sight unrelated to gender--establish the cultural acceptance of inequality. Matter and Reason prove to be especially important among those binaries. They function like a root system that predetermines the shapes of the leaves that gender will take. Consequently, the investigation of those binaries is a radical investigation into gender. Chapters 2 and 3 explain how the root system of binaries moves into psychic life through a consideration of Butler's account of melancholic anger and her ethics of survival. These investigations show that although people feel anger towards the demands of this root system, Western culture provides no outlet for their expression, which causes them to psychically redirect that hostility inwards as self-punishment. I then propose a theory of anger and its role in the alleviation of suffering by introducing a new category--transformational anger--that is not present in Butler's account of melancholy, but that takes its direction from her account. In my account of transformational anger I suggest a role for public mourning of the loss of fluid relationships, those that would operate outside of the demand for rigidly opposed ideals of masculinity and femininity. Mourning loosens the rigidity of internalized anger. This results in a more fluid and less violent relationship between parts of the self. Applied to communal dynamics, public mourning creates more fluid and less violent relationships between classes of bodies that are marked by masculinity and femininity, and hence a method of survival for those bodies most vulnerable to violence. The second part of the dissertation applies the theory of transformational anger to a reading of Julian of Norwich's A Revelation of Love. In chapters four through seven Butler's lens reveals the previously unexamined role of anger in Julian's text. It allows us to see that Julian's project is systematically directed by her scandalized grief: she is scandalized and grieved that she feels sensitivity to divine and human suffering, but that the all-powerful deity's failure to prevent suffering shows that he does not feel sensitivity to her human suffering. She therefore questions whether the deity is responsible for suffering. While Julian initially rejects her sense of scandal and outrage as sinful, thinking about Julian together with Butler's method of genealogy enables us to see that Julian's anger is at work throughout A Revelation and its insistent return to her experience of outrage at God's seeming indifference to human suffering. As Julian repeatedly returns to her own feeling of outrage, she gradually converts the role of her scandal from a sinful act into the guiding message of her theology. Through these returns she progressively revises the root system of traditional Western binaries that would exclude her anger towards the deity as unintelligible. Julian's reiterations of outrage model an extensive training of awareness and bodily sensation that seek out tensions in her background thoughts and feelings, which are at odds with each other about basic human categories. Through her mature meditative awareness she sees the inconsistency of the Western binaries that frame categories of meaning; this then allows her to revise these binaries and to replace them with new theological ideas. Because these new ideas erode authoritative binaries in the Western imaginary, they also oppose common church teachings about the responsibilities that the deity and human beings hold for suffering, replacing traditional sources of authority with new ones that encourage her anger rather than exclude it. This dissertation therefore emphasizes more than previous scholarship the shifts in sources of authority that occur across Julian's Revelation. Her revision of binaries, her new theological ideas, and her changing patterns in relation to authority model a melancholic anger that turns into transformational anger enabled by the meditative body. Butler's framework reveals that Julian's idea of mother Jesus plays two key roles in the transformational anger at work in the Showings. According to the first role, Julian calls the motion of this transformational anger mother Jesus--a term that is shown to be a practice rather than a personified ideal. Further, reading Julian against the framework provided by Butler suggests that before Julian introduces the idea of mother Jesus late in the text, the revisions that she previously made to Western binaries have already evacuated the feminine and the masculine of their usual meanings. As a result, mother Jesus occupies a third position to which the Western imaginary cannot easily apply categories of femininity or masculinity. According to the second role, mother Jesus is a practice that answers Julian's anger towards the unequal sensitivity that she perceives between divine and human sensitivity to suffering. The dissertation suggests that in this role Julian uses aspects of motherhood as an ideal in the Western imaginary to represent sin or debt. She provisionally uses the maternal ideal in order to erode the boundary between blameworthy human beings and the innocent deity. Motherhood serves to transfer responsibility for suffering from human beings to the deity in the form of divine motherhood. As a result, mother Jesus may owe human beings salvation, for in the Western imaginary femininity is an imperfection, and so may be considered a debt. Through these investigations I show that Butler and Julian use transformational anger through different skill sets to expose the arbitrary nature of binary social ideals. I propose their combination as a contribution to studies in Butler and in Julian as well as to the theologies of marginalization, especially in relation to sex, sexuality and gender, that those two may inform. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Denna kvalitativa översiktsstudie har som syfte att övergripande undersöka våld i nära relation när det kommer till samkönade par. Genom en narrativ syntes identifierades ett antal teman som analyserades med hjälp av ett Queerteoretiskt ramverk och med genusperspektivet i åtanke. Under analysen framgick att det fanns likheter med det våld som förekommer i heterosexuella relationernär det kommer till utsatthet, förlopp och våldets natur. Orsakerna till våld och möjligheten till att söka stöd och hjälp kompliceras dock till följd av heteronormativa ideal, där extern homofobi och fördomar internaliseras och leder till spänningar och våld i relationen. Vidare upplevde deltagarna att den allmänna uppfattningen om vem som är offer och förövare inte passar in på verkliga narrativet och att organisationer som arbetar med våldsfrågor saknar kunskap om hbtq- personers specifika behov. HBTQ-personer är en bred och svår målgrupp att fånga in när det kommer till våld i nära relation vilket genomsyrar forskningen i stort såväl som den här studien. / The purpose of this qualitative overview study is to examine overall violence in close relationships when it comes to same-sex couples. Through a narrative synthesis, a number of themes were identified that were analyzed using a Queer theoretical framework and with the gender perspective in mind. The analysis showed that there were similarities with the violence that occurs in heterosexual relationships when it comes to vulnerability, course and the nature of violence. However, the causes of violence and the ability to seek support and help are complicated by heteronormative ideals, where external homophobia and prejudice are internalized and lead to tensions and violence in the relationship. Furthermore, the participants experienced that the general perception of who are the victims and perpetrators does not fit into the real narrative and that organizations that work with issues of violence lack knowledge about the specific needs of LGBTQ people.

Sexual abuse is increasingly covered in mainstream public media in Kenyan magazines.This thesis examines the perception of victims of sexual abuse in public opinion through the lens of intersectional and queer theory. This study aims to consider how are the victims of sexual abuse presented in the local mainstream media, using examples from articles from The Star Magazine, and what is missing in discussions around gender-based violence? The thesis also concluded that silence around sexuality education impacts the depiction of sexual abuse and its victims.

The aim of this paper is to examine whether or not current textbooks in social sciences for the Swedish Gymnasium follow the criteria set up in the new subject area Sexuality, consent, and relationships (Sexualitet, samtycke och relationer), which was brought into the current curriculum for the Swedish Gymnasium at the start of the autumn semester 2022. The study is performed by examining what content related to Sexuality, consent, and relationships is presented in the textbooks, in what way, which discourses are influencing the books, and what effect this can have on the socio-cultural practice in the form of consequences for the teaching process. The paper uses a combination of gender and queer theory, together with discourse theory as a foundation to interpret both the textbooks and the criteria of the curriculum. The used method is an adaptation of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis, as modified by textbook researcher Lina Spjut. The material consists of three social sciences textbooks made for the class Samhällskunskap 1b at the Swedish Gymnasium School level.  The analysis revealed that two of the textbooks still contained and reproduced harmful heteronormative and binary norms, and lacked the norm-critical thinking required by the updated curriculum, showing influence of risk-emphasized silence discourse with elements of tolerance discourse. The third book was found to be more aligned with the criteria of the curriculum, having a high degree of norm-critical thinking, showing influence of a balanced-emphasized norm-critical discourse. All books were however lacking specific elements required that were added to the new curriculum, such as critical approach to pornography and information about honour-related violence and oppression.