Browsing by Subject "gender"
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Item A Content Analysis of Gender Representations in Independent Video Games(2017-04-10) Nicholl, Grace; Miller, Lee; Cabaniss, Emily; Douglas, KarenVideo games are an increasingly popular pastime, and their influence on society grows along with the gaming industry. Independent video games are also growing in popularity, though little research has been conducted on how indie games compare to mainstream Triple-A (AAA) games, particularly in in representations of gender. This content analysis investigates the representations of gender found in indie video games. Twelve popular indie games from 2010 through 2015 were selected for investigation. Characters appearing in these games were evaluated on a number of variables to determine adherence to gender norms exposed in previous research. Male characters were found to outnumber female characters, though by a smaller margin than expected. Female characters were sexualized in higher numbers than males, though less than found in AAA games. A significant number of characters were found to be gender non-conforming.Item Adult education, popular culture, and women's identity development: self-directed learning with The Avengers(2009-06-02) Wright, Robin RedmonThe purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of popular culture, especially prime-time television, on women learner-viewers? identity development. More specifically, this study explores one specific television show, the 1962-64 Cathy Gale episodes of The Avengers as a portal to adult learning. It further explores the ways in which television, as a form of public pedagogy, can help facilitate the formation of a critical or feminist identity among adult learner viewers. The research questions guiding this study were: 1) How and what did women learn from watching The Avengers? 2) How did women incorporate that learning into their lives and into their identities? and 3) How did women interpret and accommodate the feminist example of Cathy Gale? Data for this study was collected over a two-and-a-half year period. Data consisted of interviews with contemporaneous viewers of the Cathy Gale Avengers episodes, interviews with scriptwriters and the actor who played Cathy Gale, Honor Blackman, numerous documents from statistics obtained at the British Film Institute, fanzines, and newspaper articles of the period. Analysis revealed that in particular historical times and situations television viewing can become a form of public pedagogy, facilitating transformational learning in adult viewers that produces lasting, life-changing effects. The investigation revealed that not only did biologically-born women incorporate Cathy Gale?s feminist example into their identities and actions, but biologically born males whose core gender identity was female did also. This dissertation is written in article format. Each of the six sections has been designed as stand-alone pieces to aid accessibility and enhance readers? engagement with the study.Item Clarifying the Relationships between Rural Parenting Practices and Child Sedentary Behaviors(2013-04-29) Gabriel, Myra GayleChildhood obesity is a growing problem in the United States. Though a great body of research has focused on this area, little is still known about the factors that influence this phenomenon in rural settings. Sedentary behavior and parenting factors are just two factors that influence this trend toward obesity. However, even less is known about how the intersection of parenting influences affects child sedentary behaviors in rural communities. This study examines the relationship between parenting factors and child sedentary behaviors within the context of rurality. This study was completed in two parts. Part one consisted of a comprehensive review of the literature that provided background on the current practices and set the stage for the statistical analysis that followed. Part two included the statistical analysis, which focused on examining the relationships between parents? TV and behavior rules, and child?s sedentary activity behaviors. Pearson correlation and Spearman?s rank were used to assess whether relationships existed between variables. Correlations between weekday and weekend activity and gender were not found to be significant. Also, relationships between rule enforcement and activity were not found to be significant. This study found a glaring gap in the literature that examines how parenting factors influence child sedentary behaviors in rural settings. Also, the statistical analysis revealed that parental rules have no associations with child sedentary activity, despite medium rates of enforcement.Item Cowboys, pop stars, pimps and players: themes in music videos(Texas A&M University, 2005-08-29) Wesley, Chelcie MelissaTelevision is something that is a part of the everyday lives of a majority of people in America. The content of what is on television can vary in nature from being positive to being negative. However, what people are exposed to through music videos, in particular, a very popular form of artistic expression, has not been thoroughly investigated. This study uses structural ritualization affect, gender schema theory, media and audience power theories, cultivation theory, agenda setting and framing theories, and (cognitive) social learning theory in order to investigate what people are actually exposed to by watching music videos, in particular, MTV, BET, and GAC.Item Display rules for expressed emotion within organizations and gender: implications for emotional labor and social place marking(Texas A&M University, 2004-09-30) Griffin, Andrea Eugenie CharlotteEmotions are recognized as central to organizational life. The dialogue on the role of emotion in organizational life is furthered here by addressing the role that gendered display rules and associated expectations play in shaping individuals' expressed (rather than felt) responses to emotional exchanges within the organization. The role of gender in shaping intraorganizational emotional display rules is examined as it interplays at social, organizational and individual normative levels. In this context, emotions and emotional displays at work are seen as affecting individual's subjective social place in organizations. It is argued that gendering influences within the organization make social place marking more difficult and may result in increased forms of emotional labor, particularly surface acting/emotional dissonance, which may lead to emotional exhaustion in employees. A laboratory experiment was conducted using videotaped vignettes to represent more and less levels of gendering in emotional interactions. Findings indicate that there were no main effects for level of gendering as operationalized by this study on emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and subjective social place. Exploratory data analyses conducted further examine these relationships and point out the importance of the sex of the employee involved in the emotional exchange. This study points towards theoretical and empirical implications for how emotions are interpreted not only by members of different sex categories, but also for other dimensions of diversity in the organization and associated consequences.Item Evolution of gender wage gap in Peru, 1997-2000(2009-05-15) Montes, Jose L.Wage differentials result from different years of education or experience or size of the firms, and also from other factors that do not have anything to do with the labor characteristics of the individuals. One of these factors is usually gender. The wage differential due to gender, and not to differences in labor characteristics, is called discrimination. The goal of this project is to estimate the evolution of the wages differentials and wage discrimination between males and females in Peru within and between 1997 and 2000, a time of economic recession in Peru. The wages differentials estimations show that all categories of males and females saw their real wages decreased; only blue-collar females saw their real wages increased; the return to the interaction between education and specific experience follow a linear trend. This means that more education and more experience will be rewarded at the same rate at any combination. The wage discrimination estimation shows that there was a small but significant wage discrimination in favor of women in 1997 and it disappeared by 2000. This showed that employers reduced all premiums to their employees during a period of economic recession.Item Gender and the homoerotic logic of torture at Abu Ghraib(2009-05-15) Caldwell, Ryan AshleyThe focus of this dissertation is a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by American forces. I provide the following: an examination of the photographs of abuse that were leaked to the press in the fall of 2003; an analysis of both Lynndie England?s and Sabrina Harman?s courts-martial (two of the ?rotten apples?); a discussion of the body associated with punishment and torture, and also as marked in ways of identification; and an assessment of additional representations regarding prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Throughout this analysis, I use gender as a lens to understand Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial. It is important to note that I gained access to and was intimately involved as a graduate researcher for Dr. Stjepan G. Mestrovic, an expert for the defense, and experienced the events of the trials themselves, first-hand and during closed counsel and open session. The empirical data provided is drawn primarily from first-hand qualitative research that involved participant-observation of two trials, interaction with soldiers and officers, and analysis of both documents pertaining to the trial as well as the photographs of abuse themselves, among other things. I incorporate cultural studies, feminist and sociological theory (modern and postmodern), and feminist philosophy so as to provide a theoretical analysis of the abuse at Abu Ghraib and the subsequent courts-martial focused on gender and sexuality. The result of this dissertation is a social and cultural theoretical analysis of the empirical data regarding the prison abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by American forces, where women, gender, and sexuality are shown to be important criteria for examination. Specifically, the results of this project highlight areas that current analyses of the abuse at Abu Ghraib have left out: how women fit into American military politics, how gender functions as power within the military, how gender is socially constructed in the military in terms of heterosexuality, and how both gender and sexuality are used as weapons by the American military. This kind of examination is useful in future policy considerations for the military and for detainee treatment, where analyses of women, gender, sexuality, and power have been so far neglected in any serious way, and even by sociologists Phillip Zimbardo and the application of his Stanford Prison Study to the events of Abu Ghraib.Item ''Girls have long hair'' and other myths: the social construction of girlhood in fifth and sixth grade girls(2009-05-15) Dummer, Susan IleneThe past fifteen years have yielded numerous studies of girls and the struggles they face in today's society. This dissertation examines the ways that preadolescent girls, "tweens," understand what it means to be a girl and the factors that shape their identity as a girl. Through thematic content analysis of data collected through 22 focus groups and one-on-one interviews, I argue that girlhood is a socially constructed phenomenon. The girls' perceptions of girlhood are influenced by their media consumption, their families, and their social interactions. Their understanding of girlhood includes both physical and psychological characteristics. The girls' understanding of girlhood is also reflective of stereotypical myths of femininity. The experience of girlhood, as described by the participants, is an experience of transition from child to adolescent, an experience of liminality, and includes dialectical tensions that the girls must attempt to negotiate. The girls? experience of girlhood differs from their perceptions of ideal girlhood, and often the girls indicate that the perceptions are ?real? and their personal experiences are not.Item Historia, Naci?n y G?nero: La representaci?n de la historia en El ata?d de uso y No pertenezco a este siglo de Rosa Mar?a Britton(2010-07-14) George, AnaThe novel, as a genre, has been nourished since its inception by history. In this vein, literary production in Latin America has not been an exception. From the time of the conquest to the beginnings of the republican era, writers have seeded their narrative with their own lives and experiences. The emancipation of the Spanish colonies in America markedly changed the historical, political, economic and social framework of the colonists who, as writers, were the period?s strongest witnesses. The new American nations, in some cases, populated their histories with fiction, when the fiction meshed with the socio-political agenda. Some of the topics covered by this type of writing included mestizaje and social caste, topics that reinforced national utopian projects. The two historical works analyzed in this thesis present characteristics of 19th century romantic novels, especially El atuad de uso. Theories of the historical novel proposed by Gyorgy Lukacs, Anderson Imbert, Seymour Menton and Jose de Pierola form a foundation for this research and analysis. To demonstrate the relationship between the new nations and the romantic novels of the 19th century, this work draws on the research of Doris Sommer. The theory of narrative and historical representation proposed by Hayden White serves to clarify the idea of history and fiction in literature. The works of Michel Foucault, Simone de Beauvoir and Lucia Guerra-Cunningham helped capture the representation of woman throughout history. The two novels studied in this work may be categorized as historical novels since they are anchored in real historical events. The historical representation of the characters follows loosely the model used in the 19th century. Throughout these novels background topics like mestizaje, social castes, and the role of women in the era serve as a realistic backdrop.Item I Am the Monster: Self and the Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Young Adult Literature(2014-05-15) Talafuse, ElizabethMy dissertation surveys British, American, Australian, and New Zealand young adult texts of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries featuring female protagonists who are fantastic monsters. Addressing such texts as Margaret Mahy?s The Changeover, Justine Larbalestier?s Liar, and Diana Wynne Jones?s The Time of the Ghost, I examine the metaphorical use of monstrosity in literature to address the ?problem? of female adolescence, specifically in relation to female physical development, sexuality, and agency. With chapters on witches, werewolves, and ghosts, I investigate the ways in which the characters? understanding of their monstrosity intersects with their emerging gender identity. I interrogate what these representations of monstrous young women reveal about social and cultural perspectives on femininity and the developing female body. As supernatural entities, monsters extend the possibilities of human experience, demonstrating physical and psychic powers that disturb the established order. Framing the female protagonist as a monster, however, indicates a fear of her potential to disturb and destroy. Thus, I argue that while the proliferation of monstrous female protagonists encourages female agency by making the monstrous powerful, familiar, and enticing, the trend simultaneously demonstrates the ways in which these seemingly subversive characters are contained within moral and social frameworks of femininity.Item Imperial Standard-Bearers: Nineteenth-Century Army Officers' Wives in British India and the American West(2012-07-16) McInnis, VerityThe comparative experiences of the nineteenth-century British and American Army officer's wives add a central dimension to studies of empire. Sharing their husbands' sense of duty and mission, these women transferred, adopted, and adapted national values and customs, to fashion a new imperial sociability, influencing the course of empire by cutting across and restructuring gender, class, and racial borders. Stationed at isolated stations in British India and the American West, many officers' wives experienced homesickness and disorientation. They reimagined military architecture and connected into the military esprit de corps, to sketch a blueprint of female identity and purpose. On the physical journeys to join their husbands, and post arrival, the feminization of formal and informal military practices produced a new social reality and facilitated the development of an empowered sisterhood that sustained imperialist ambitions. This appropriation of symbols, processes, and rankings facilitated roles as social functionaries and ceremonial performers. Additionally, in utilizing dress, and home decor, military spouses drafted and projected an imperial identity that reflected, yet transformed upper and middle-class gender models. An examination of the social processes of calling and domestic rituals confirms the formation of a distinct and influential imperial female identity. The duty of protecting the social gateway to the imperial community, rested with a hostess?s ability to discriminate ? and convincingly reject parvenus. In focusing on the domestic site it becomes clear that the mistress-servant relationship both formulated and reproduced imperial ideologies. Within the home, the most intimate of inter-racial, inter-ethnic, and inter-class contact zones, the physiological trait of a white skin, and the exhibition of national artifacts signaled identity, status, and authority. Military spouses, then, generated social power as arbiters, promoters, and police officers of an imperial class, reaffirming internal confidence within the Anglo communities, and legitimizing external representations of the power and prestige of empire.Item In Search of Pleasure: An Exploration of Teenage Recreational Sex(2012-02-14) Reichstein, LaurenThis thesis utilizes a qualitative method to investigate recreational sex among teenagers as recounted by current college-aged students. As defined for the purposes of this thesis, recreational sex is any consensual sexual activity undertaken for the purpose of pleasure and can encompass a variety of sexual activities. Questions were focused on attitudes and feelings about experiences and were formulated based on reminiscence methods. Studies that discuss teen sexuality in terms of pleasure are important for acknowledging sexual agency and self-efficacy among teens and for addressing the inherent risk involved in sexual activity. The first part of this thesis focuses on recreational sex in a more traditional recreational context. In other words, how do teens discuss and view recreation and recreational sex? Findings suggest that it is often hard to define sexual activity in terms usually associated with other recreational activities but that there are parallels upon further discussion. In addition, partners, past experience, and use of contraception play a role in shaping current experiences. The second part of this thesis examines the gendered contexts of teenage sexual pleasure. Findings show that the pursuance of pleasure is problematic for females in the same way that other sexual activities are. Participants suggest that sexual pleasure is assumed for males but criticized for females and that females often must negotiate the social landscape carefully to project a particular desirable image. In addition, many female participants described being the victims of sexual assault as part of their sexual experiences. Taken together, these pieces provide a contextual picture of teenage recreational sex. Rather than investigate more traditional aspects of teen sexual behavior (i.e. contraception, alcohol and drug use), this thesis approaches sexual activity in terms of pleasure. This gives credence to the idea that teens not only experience sexual pleasure but also that they actively seek it.Item Muteness in Organizational Computer-Mediated Communication: A Critical Study(2012-07-16) Kissack, HeatherThe purpose of this feminist critical discourse analysis was to uncover whether or not, and how, muteness of female-preferential voice occurs within written organizational computer-mediated communication. Qualitative textual analysis was used to analyze 18 discussion forums from three voluntary professional associations representing highly male-populated (mechanical engineering), gender neutral (training and development), and highly female-populated (nursing) industries. Discussion posting participants were categorized for using male-preferential (MP), female-preferential (FP), or neutral (N) language. MP and FP interactions were then analyzed for themes of muting and muteness. Seven major findings within three analytic categories emerged from this study. First, with regards to preferential language use by industry site, all three sites? participants used FP language more than MP language. In fact, 158 of the 246 total participants were categorized as FP language users and 17 of the 18 forums were initiated by a FP participant. Additionally, although overall, modals and hedges were the most prevalent FP language characteristics and opinions were the most prevalent MP language characteristic, this differed across industry site. Implications for scaling preferential language dimensions along a continuum from highly feminine to highly masculine are discussed. Second, regarding strategies of maintaining male dominance (muting), it was found that MP language dimensions were used more often by MP participants when interacting with FP participants. Themes of muting strategies such as overstating one?s knowledge base were found in MP language. FP participants, on the other hand, cloak their opinions in subordinating language; thus understating their knowledge. This context allows MP language users to trivialize FP language users? postings. Additionally, the use of masculine pronouns was equal to the use of feminine pronouns despite the majority of FP participants; and FP participants were overwhelmingly more likely to use masculine pronouns that MP participants were likely to use feminine pronouns. Finally, with regards to strategies of FP communication during interactions with MP language users (muteness), FP participants engaged mostly in respectful communication as a strategy to communicate. The communication strategy used least was confrontation. An emergent strategy of communication was the increased use of metaphors by FP participants when interacting with MP participants.Item Negotiating Worlds, Managing Subjectivities, and Redefining Selves: The Lived Experiences of African American Undergraduate Females at Predominately White Institutions(2011-02-22) Allen, Ayana Ma-ElA narrative analysis of the lived experiences of seven undergraduate African American females at Predominately White Institutions (PWIs) is presented in this study. The purpose of the study was to explore the ways the seven women constructed their identity and self-concept in the context of their PWI environment. Other key purposes of the study included strategies in which the women successfully negotiated their PWI environments and the influence of the intersection of race, gender, and class on the collegiate and life experiences of these African American undergraduate females. The framework which was conceptualized from previous literature portrayed the historical context of the African American woman?s struggle for educational access as both Black and female, her life on campus, tools for success, and the identity development of African American women. Critical Race and Black Feminist theoretical frameworks, were the foundation for the study. Through these theoretical lenses, the study looked closely at the academic, social, and cultural climate on PWI campuses and the impact of these factors on the identity development and self-concept of the women in this study. The research methodology of narrative analysis was used and resulted in the emergence of three key findings in this study. The findings indicate that African American undergraduate females at PWIs engage in negotiating worlds, managing subjectivities, and redefining selves as they make meaning and walk out their individual lived experiences as students on Predominately White campuses.Item On the same team? a qualitative study of female sportswriters' attitudes on covering women's athletics(Texas A&M University, 2008-10-10) Butler, Bryan ChristopherWomen's athletics regularly receives less media coverage than men's athletics, and female athletes are often portrayed in ways that de-emphasize their athletic abilities. Previous researchers have suggested that increasing the number of women who work in sports media might improve coverage for female athletes. Ten women sportswriters who work at daily newspapers were interviewed to explore how they perceived covering women's sports. Most of the sportswriters said that they did not feel any preference toward covering women's athletics. They said they were more interested in finding good stories to write than pursuing stories based on gender. The sportswriters also suggested that men's sports received more coverage because sports fans were more interested in men's sports. Most of the women said that their bosses do not expect women to cover women? s sports because of their gender, but that newspapers' use of the beat system encourages sportswriters of both sexes to cover the top men's professional sports and college football. The widespread use of beats to cover sports and the acknowledgement of what sports constitute the top beats suggests that the profession and the larger field of sports journalism can influence what sports sportswriters want to cover. Organizational culture, new institutionalism, and Bourdieu's field theory can help explain how the sportswriting profession and sports media practices influence sportswriters' decisions on what sports are desirable to cover.Item Perceived constraints to art museums/galleries participation(Texas A&M University, 2004-11-15) Jun, JinheeResearch on constraints to leisure and recreation participation has focused on various types of activities in which people would like to participate, are currently participating, or have stopped participating. However, little attention has been made to identify constraints associated with art activities participation. The objectives of this study were to 1) identify factors which limit people's attendance to art museums/galleries; 2) address the issue of the internal heterogeneity between two constrained leisure behaviors; 3) reveal the role of previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle in the perception of constraints to art activities; and 4) show the validity of segmentation criteria which are previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle. Data from the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA 1997) was used in this study. Total sample was divided into four categories by previous participation and interest in future participation. Further, the categories 'participants with interest' and 'non-participants with interest' were sub-divided based on gender and lifecycle. The results revealed that time, cost, access and availability were considered as the most significant constraints to art activity participation across all segments. However, the array and intensity of constraints differed depending on the types of constrained leisure. In addition, different types of constraints were experienced with different intensity by segments defined by previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle. The analyses demonstrated that previous participation, interest in future participation, gender and lifecycle were important segmentation criteria in constructing homogeneous groups with respect to perceived leisure constraints.Item Public women: the representation of prostitutes in German Weimar films (1919-1933)(2009-05-15) Hoban, Melissa LeeThis thesis explores the representation of prostitution in German Weimar films between 1919 and 1933. It theorizes that prostitutes are illustrated through characters who are public women. The women who step out of their homes to enter public, or who are somehow introduced to strangers without leaving their homes are public women. The public women in these films, as public women living in Germany, were in danger of being identified as prostitutes and becoming prostitutes. A woman?s public position made her vulnerable to the male sexualized gaze. The male sexualized gaze ultimately led to a woman?s prostitution. The thesis analyzes 4 films to demonstrate woman?s depiction as a prostitute. The first film, Nosferatu, depicts a seemingly virtuous woman whose husband begins to prostitute her, but ultimately she prostitutes herself in exchange for the service of a supernatural law. The film symbolically discusses social issues regarding prostitution, family life, and venereal disease. The second film, Metropolis, protects its public female character from the sexualized gaze with religion and motherhood at the beginning of the film. However, as the film progresses the main character, Maria, is unwillingly prostituted by the head of the society in exchange for a robot that looks like her. The robot employs the male sexualized gaze and her position as a prostitute to overturn society as a vagina dentata. The third and fourth films are The Blue Angel and Variety respectively. Both of these films depict women in public positions who use their sexuality for gain. These women prostitute themselves. They are not victims as Maria and Ellen are in the two previous films. The women in this chapter use their sexuality and prostitution as a way to attain agency. The women in these films I label as vagina dentata because they purposefully destroy men for their own gain. These women use public sexuality to find and engage their male prey as patrons before they emasculate them. The thesis views the women of Weimar films differently than other scholars have by making her the focus of the film and interpreting her public exposure as her gateway to prostitution.Item Race, Gender, and Media Practices: A Critical Framing Analysis of the Media?s Coverage of USDA Worker Shirley Sherrod(2013-05-03) McGovney-Ingram, RebeccaOn July 19, 2010, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a story on his website claiming USDA worker Shirley Sherrod was racist in her work with farmers. The edited video included with the story as proof, showed Sherrod speaking at an NAACP banquet. Sherrod was subsequently vilified in the media and fired from her job, only to be exonerated and rehired later that week. Although the media claims their routine writing and reporting practices (such as newsworthiness, source selection, objectivity, and perpetual news cycle) make the industry better, researchers have shown that these practices lead to the use of shortcuts and stereotypes. This is especially detrimental to Black women because of the double-dose of stereotyping they are subject to when they are portrayed in the media. The purpose of this study was to understand how media practices influenced the framing of race and gender in the media coverage of Sherrod. In order to integrate key elements of critical theory (i.e. activism, intersectionality, speaking position, subjectivity) I chose a mixed-methods approach for my framing analysis. This included open-ended reading of the news stories, constant comparative analysis of possible frames, quantitative coding sheet, analysis of statistics in SPSS, and inclusion of qualitative examples. I analyzed a total of 93 news articles from 12 news sources for this study. Most of the news stories came from newer, online publications (n=67, 72.0%) and over half came from new sources with a liberal philosophy (n=47, 50.5%). I found three frames that were used to describe Sherrod in terms of race and gender: victim, good woman, and above her place. I also found that these frames were closely aligned with news values that help determine a story?s newsworthiness. I found seven sources were used repetitively and selectively associated with the frames. I also found differences in frames by news source type and philosophy. Finally, I found that the frames followed an identifiable news cycle. The results of this study show that the media do indeed utilize negative stereotypes of Black women in their products and that media?s use of routine writing and reporting practices exacerbate this problem.Item Reimagining the nation: gender and nationalism in contemporary U.S. women's literature(2009-05-15) Park, Mi SunThis dissertation discusses contemporary U.S. women?s literature in the context of women?s struggles with nation and nationalism, examining how Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Naylor, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Nora Okja Keller contest articulations of gender, ethnicity, and cultural affiliations in terms of the dynamics of national inclusion and exclusion. Silko?s Ceremony (1977), Naylor?s Linden Hills (1985), Kingston?s The Woman Warrior (1976), and Keller?s Comfort Woman (1997) were written at the crossroads between contemporary feminisms and nationalisms and reveal women?s centrality to national projects. Approaching these four literary texts not only as cultural narrations of nation but also as critical engagements between feminism and nationalism, this dissertation argues that postnational and/or transnational politics are manifest in these women writers? articulation of women?s liminality between their cultural nations and the U.S. The chapters that follow analyze how women writers narrate the nation in various contexts while reinscribing women as subjects of national agency and the U.S. as a transnational and postnational site of contending memories and national narratives. Chapter II examines a possible women?s nationalist attempt to de-essentialize the nation by reading Silko?s Ceremony. Silko provides a hybrid narration of the nation that challenges the full blood subjects? hegemonic model of Native American cultural nationalism. Silko, however, uses the gendered rhetoric of nation-as-women and denies women as national subject. Chapter III moves to a critical standpoint on cultural nationalism through reading Naylor?s Linden Hills. Tackling the unmarked status of masculinity in Silko?s project, chapter III examines how Naylor problematizes the gendered foundations of the African American cultural nation and deconstruct her contemporary African American cultural nationalism. Chapter IV discusses Kingston?s The Woman Warrior as a literary supplement to hegemonic history of the U.S. and Asian America and as a feminist corrective to masculinist narrations of the nation. The last chapter discusses the possibilities of transnational feminist coalitions through reading Keller?s Comfort Woman. In their feminist, transnational, or postnational critiques of nationalisms, women writers demonstrate that it is not possible to reimagin the nation without feminism and textually embody the significant contributions of feminism to contemporary liberatory movements.Item Shared Experiences and Collective Production: Note Card Confessions on YouTube(2014-12-03) Fowlds, KelliNew media are continuously changing the way in which youth communicate. Social media and online production, especially, are rapidly evolving. This research analyzes note card confession videos found on the popular video site, YouTube. It looks at the many aspects of digital storytelling, networked publics, and social support that make this genre of videos so unique. These videos have many visual and narrative components that tie them together as a unique form of communication. Writing style, narrative cues, and physical gestures were all used as part of the digital storytelling process. It was found that there is a common discussion of intimate topics such as depression, abuse, bullying, self-harm, and suicide. Furthermore, the comments section of each of the videos seems to serve as a potential space for online social support. In response to these videos, a series of parody videos have also been created as an apparent critical response to these note card confessions. These findings potentially open up new paths of research regarding new media communication, prevention studies, and youth health.